On the first descent after her magnificent Olympic appearance, Emma Aicher narrowly missed the podium in Soldeu (Andorra). Kira Weidle-Winkelmann did not make it into the top ten on Friday morning (February 27th, 2026) when Corinne Suter from Switzerland won.
After the two silver medals in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Aicher approached her run with start number 11 a little too passively, allowing herself to be pushed too far out in the corners and thus clearly missing the ideal line in several places. In the Downhill World Cup, she still gained 50 points on the injured American Lindsey Vonn and still has a chance of winning the small crystal ball in the remaining two races.
Aicher didn’t seem particularly happy in the Sportschau interview afterwards, but said: “It’s okay. I didn’t ski quite as consistently on the steep slopes and made a few mistakes. But overall it’s fine. I’m not thinking about the Downhill World Cup at all, so we’ll just look at the last race.”
Shake your head at Weidle-Winkelmann
Kira Weidle-Winkelmann didn’t get into her rhythm right from the start. After a wild ride with many technical errors, she ended up standing in the finish area shaking her head, hunched over her ski poles – that really wasn’t her day.
Nevertheless, Weidle-Winkelmann still has the opportunity to move to the top of the overall standings, but to do this she must show a significant improvement in form in the next two races in Val di Fassa (Italy) and at the World Cup final in Kvitfjell, Norway.
Super ride from Suter
Suter conjured up the best ride in Soldeu on the slope. In 1:31.62 minutes, after a very smooth run with a lot of feeling and a brilliant line, the Swiss woman was eleven hundredths of a second ahead of the Austrian Nina Ortlieb and 24 hundredths ahead of the Italian Sofia Goggia.
Aicher followed in fourth place with 0.53 seconds and managed to keep Olympic downhill champion Breezy Johnson from the USA just a distance away. Weidle-Winkelmann was 1.43 seconds behind and missed the top ten.
