Goggia and Johnson go 1-2 in World Cup downhill for 3rd time

Olympic champion Sofia Goggia held up seven fingers after finishing a women's World Cup downhill downhill Saturday in Val d'Isere, France.

One for each victory in her last seven downhill starts.

Goggia stretched her unbeaten run in the discipline to a year when she and her American rival Breezy Johnson finished 1-2 for the third time this season.

"I am really happy but I know I still have to work a lot in this discipline," said Goggia, who became only the third skier to win at least six downhills in a single calendar year, after Annemarie Moser-Pröll achieved the feat in 1973 and 1978, and Picabo Street in 1995.

Goggia beat Johnson by .27 seconds, with Austrian skier Mirjam Puchner .91 behind in third. The rest of the field finished more than 1.3 seconds off the lead.

The result sent Goggia past Mikaela Shiffrin to the top of the overall standings, leading the American three-time champion by 10 points.

Shiffrin sat out the race but was set to compete with Goggia in a super-G on the same hill Sunday.

She jumped farther than any of her competitors near the Telephone turn in the upper part of the course, picked a riskier race line than her rivals in the technical middle section, and reacted fast after her right ski caught a bump to quickly regain her balance without visibly slowing down.

"I made a few mistakes, I think I didn't ski so, so, so well. But I gave all my heart," said Goggia, who had decided to adapt her equipment after the final training Friday. "I didn't have the best feeling in the training run and I decided to change something on my setup.

"But then when you are at the start gate," she added, "you don't have time to think about what you have under your feet. You just have to believe in yourself to do your best skiing."

It was the seventh career podium result for the American, one year to the day after she got her first on the same course. Johnson also has four third-place finishes but is lacking a win so far.

"I feel good, I try to ski my best every day, and I am just trying to keep improving. I feel like I'm making less mistakes than I was making last year and I'm having a ton of fun," Johnson said.

With Goggia dominating the discipline two months before the Olympic downhill in Beijing, Johnson kept looming for a mistake by her Italian rival.

"She is skiing phenomenally right now, so hats off to her," Johnson said about the Italian. "But she knows she has to ski her best every day. If she does mess up or she doesn't ski perfectly, or we find a hill where her skis are not running perfectly or something is not as perfect, hopefully I can be right there to take her."

Several racers had faster starts than Goggia, but no one matched the Italian's pace on the more demanding sections of the O.K. course, which is named after French skiing greats Henri Oreiller and Jean-Claude Killy.

Suter's Swiss teammate Lara Gut-Behrami missed the race after testing positive for COVID-19 following the first training run on Thursday, ruling the 2016 overall champion out for the weekend as well as two giant slaloms in nearby Courchevel on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On the men's side, 

Bryce Bennett added to a long list of American success in Val Gardena by winning the first classic downhill of the World Cup season on Saturday.

The 6-foot-7 Californian joined teammate Steven Nyman (three downhill victories) and Bode Miller (one super-G victory) as American winners at the resort in the Dolomites.

For his first career victory, Bennett finished 0.14 seconds ahead of Otmar Striedinger of Austria and 0.32 ahead of Niels Hintermann of Switzerland amid perfect conditions.

"The feeling was fast. It was way faster than the training runs," Bennett said. "I was flying off the jumps."

Bennett had never finished better than fourth (twice in Val Gardena and once in Bormio) and now can go to the upcoming Beijing Olympics with newfound confidence.

"It just happened — finally. It's been a long time," Bennett said. "It was out of left field a little bit. ... There were no expectations of this."

The entire U.S. team has been stepping it up lately with Travis Ganong posting a podium finish in Beaver Creek, Colorado, and Ryan Cochran-Siegle regaining his speed after breaking his neck last season — plus Nyman making yet another comeback from injury at age 39.

"We have a good team going. We can do it. Just sometimes we doubt ourselves," Bennett said. " I blamed Ryan for it the other day. This sport is hard. It's mostly disappointments a lot of the time, so it's overcoming those and keep chipping away and then you have a day like that."

It's been a special time for Bennett, who was recently engaged and plans to get married next summer.

As he sat in the leader's chair, Bennett called his parents back home in Lake Tahoe, California, and soon-to-be bride, who was in Missouri.

His fiancee was sleeping.

"She missed it. I woke her up," Bennett said. "She was like, `Are you kidding?' I'm like, `Look at the live timing.' She was speechless, like me."

It was also a banner day for the U.S. team, as Breezy Johnson finished second behind Olympic champion Sofia Goggia in a women's downhill in Val d'Isere, France.

While he was only the 10th starter — with nearly all of the pre-race favorites still to ski — Bennett produced such a solid run that he seemed to know immediately it was special. He celebrated wildly in the finish area, pumping his fists and poles repeatedly and shouting.

"Bryce, you are a ski star," the race announcer shouted to the mask-wearing crowd.

"Here's how I knew when it was a good run," Bennett said. "When my service man wiped my skis down after he clicked me in, he fist bumped Otmar's service man and I knew that it was like, `OK, that was a good run, you have that in the bag.' So when I crossed the line [ahead of Striedinger], I was stoked — very stoked."

Bennett and Nyman share the same ski technician, Leo Mussi — who is from the Dolomites. Mussi also worked for Italian racer Kristian Ghedina, who shares the record of four downhill wins in Val Gardena with Austrian great Franz Klammer.

"I knew the skis would be fast," Bennett said. "When I ski poorly now I just feel so bad for Leo, because he works so hard. He's my second dad. Steve, Leo, myself, we have a good relationship. We're tight together and we work really well."

Nyman's wins — the only victories of his career — came in 2006, 2012 and 2014.

"It's a magical place for us and I'm really stoked on Bryce to keep the tradition going," Nyman said.

Bennett had barely sat down when the next starter, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde — the Norwegian who had posted three straight wins in Val Gardena — was faster than the American through each of the first four checkpoints.

Kilde was nearly an entire second ahead of Bennett entering the terrain-filled Ciaslat section but he was carrying so much speed that he began to lose control and went way off line. Kilde narrowly avoided crashing but failed to recover in time to clear the next gate.

Local favorite Dominik Paris of Italy finished fourth and Swiss standout Beat Feuz was fifth. Paris and Feuz were also faster than Bennett through most of the course but couldn't match the Tahoe City, California, skier through the Ciaslat.

Bennett was a BMX racer as a kid and his biking background and long legs help him to absorb the terrain in the Ciaslat, which is filled with little rolls and bumps.

"My entire life was about who could hit the biggest cliff, jump off the stupidest stuff. So that part is natural to me — the big jumps and the air," Bennett said.

"But where I get the feeling is from BMX racing. I did that for eight, nine years growing up to a kind of decent, high level. It's just that feeling of being able to work the terrain and use it. It gets me speed where people don't think you can get speed."

Canada's James Crawford finished 28th.

The circuit now moves over the Gardena pass to Alta Badia for giant slaloms Sunday and Monday.