Sofia GOGGIA

Goggia returned to action after a year on the sidelines, but the results took time to materialise.

She eventually made a World Cup podium in the Killington giant slalom of November 2016 and then took World Championship bronze in the same event at St. Moritz a few months later behind Tessa Worley and Mikaela Shiffrin.

The breakthrough came in March 2017 at the World Cup races at Jeongseon (KOR) which doubled up as test events for PyeongChang.

Goggia beat Lindsey Vonn by seven-hundredths of a second to claim her first World Cup victory in the downhill and then, 24 hours later, defeated the American by just four-hundredths in the Super-G.

Attempting to explain her sudden success in Korea, she said: "I think my qualities as a ninja warrior are more appreciated in Asia, and that’s why my first career win had to come here."

Ilka Stuhec beat Goggia to the downhill crystal globe that season, but the Slovenian suffered a serious knee injury of her own at the start of the Olympic season.

The downhill campaign witnessed an epic fight between Goggia and Vonn for top spot with the Italian's back-to-back wins at Bad Kleinkirchheim (AUT) and Cortina d'Ampezzo (ITA) giving her the advantage.

The American claimed the last two downhills, both at Garmisch-Partenkirchen (GER), but Goggia was second on both occasions to keep her World Cup lead going into the Olympic Winter Games.

Goggia showed all her skill and bravery in the Olympic downhill, taking risks aplenty to clock 1:39.22 which was over a second faster than her training run the day before.

"Today’s been a good day,” she said later, reflecting on her performance. “I was really focused on the essential and did the absolute best I could."

Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel was nine-hundredths behind with Vonn taking the bronze in her last Olympic downhill.

She also held off Vonn to take the downhill World Cup crystal globe. Vonn won the final round at Are (SWE), but Goggia's second place saw her claim the title by just three points.

A broken ankle ruled her out of most of the 2018/19 season, although she did come back to take silver behind Shiffrin in the World Championship Super-G at Are.

A slightly disappointing 2019/20 season was ended prematurely by a fractured arm sustained in a crash in the Garmisch Super-G, but she reasserted her superiority in 2020/21 by becoming the first woman since Vonn to record four consecutive World Cup downhill victories.

Injury struck again in Garmisch as she took a tumble on fresh snow while skiing back to her hotel after fog had forced the Super-G to be cancelled. What was initially thought to be a sprain was later diagnosed as a fracture of the tibia just below the knee joint which forced her to miss her home World Championships in Cortina, although she did claim her second downhill crystal globe.

The next season - culminating in Beijing 2022 - followed a similar pattern. Goggia won four downhills out of five, the failure being a DNF, before crashing heavily in the Cortina Super-G just three weeks ahead of her Olympic title defence.

The result was another cruciate knee ligament injury, but the 29-year-old was determined to make it to the start line of the downhill.

And after missing out on carrying the Italian flag at the Opening Ceremony to concentrate on her rehabiltation at home, Goggia impressed in training before taking silver behind Switzerland's Corinne Suter.

She said, "It was the biggest challenge that life gave me, but I didn't give up one centimetre with my head. And so I'm proud of this. It's an unbelievable medal because of the condition of the last 20 days.

"I came here with no days of skiing. I also crashed in Super-G training and I said to my coach: 'I cannot do this, I cannot do this. How can I make it to the downhill if I cannot put my leg down?' And he said: 'You will do it because you know how to do it!'"