By Alan Baldwin
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Downhill champion Breezy Johnson was heading for a golden “double double” at the Winter Olympics on Tuesday after dominating the opening leg of the women’s Alpine skiing team combined to set up U.S. partner Mikaela Shiffrin for the decisive slalom run.
Johnson and Shiffrin, the most successful World Cup skier of all time with a record 108 wins, are the world champions in the event and Johnson holds the world and Olympic downhill titles after winning Sunday’s opening speed race.
Another gold, her second of the Games, would match last year’s world championship double.
Shiffrin, winner of seven of eight World Cup slaloms this season and with the crystal globe in the discipline secured, now has one run on the sparkling Olimpia delle Tofane piste between her and a first Olympic medal since Pyeongchang 2018.
The women’s team combined event is being held for the first time at an Olympics. The U.S. has four pairs, based on performance.
“I’m super-happy,” said Johnson, whose run got a big roar from the crowd. “It’s both the most and the least pressure in skiing. It’s crazy to kind of hold somebody else’s Olympic dream and potentially (decide) if they can even start their slalom run.
“I know what Olympic dreams mean to people but it’s also free (of pressure) because you just get to pass the torch off and somebody else gets to finish the job. You just kind of get to be a passenger on the amazing ride that is an Olympic race.
“It’s like a double pressure but also half-pressure.”
DOWNHILL MEDALLIST GOGGIA CRASHES OUT
Johnson, who has never won a World Cup race, started 14th and set a time of one minute 36.59 seconds in glorious sunny conditions, 0.06 faster than Ariane Raedler for Austria’s second pair.
Laura Pirovano put Italy’s second pairing in third place with a run 0.27 off the pace and became the host nation’s main hope of a medal after Sofia Goggia, downhill bronze medallist, failed to finish.
Goggia’s inside ski slid across and she lost her balance, the fall ending the hopes of teammate Lara Della Mea.
“I wasn’t able to recreate the same mental mood of the downhill; maybe I suffered a bit from the mental energy I had to put in two days ago to do what I did,” said Goggia, who was able to ski down to the finish and waved to the crowd.
Jacqueline Wiles was fourth fastest for the U.S., with serial podium finisher Paula Moltzan skiing the slalom leg, and Austria’s first pairing of Cornelia Huetter and Katharina Truppe were fifth.
Germany’s Kira Weidle-Winkelmann was sixth fastest with all-rounder Emma Aicher opting to do the slalom despite taking silver in the downhill last Sunday.
Switzerland’s Camille Rast, the only woman to beat Shiffrin in slalom this season, will have her work cut out after teammate Corinne Suter was only 12th and 1.51 seconds slower than Johnson.
The third U.S. pair of Isabella Wright and Nina O’Brien were knocked out of the event after Wright failed to finish.
The slalom run was due to start at 1300GMT.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Ed Osmond)
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