World Ski Championships, Crawford wins the super-G. The Italians are bad

A penny. Which is worth gold. The Canadian James Crawford, descended with bib number 10, wins the super-G world title on the French snow of Courchevel Méribel, anticipating by a whisker the Norwegian Aleksander Kilde and the home athlete Alexis Pinturault, who arrived 26 cents late. Fourth Marco Odermatt (Switzerland) at 37 cents from gold.

All in a race in which the Italians, with mourning on their arm for the disappearance of Elena Fanchini, were disappointed overall.

CAREER

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So far Crawford, bronze in combined at the Beijing Games last year, had obtained three podiums in the last two super-G world cup seasons: a second place in Kvitfjell (Norway) in 2022, a second and a third place in the year in downhill course in Bormio and Beaver Creek (USA). You imposed yourself with a crescendo ending after a start that certainly didn’t let us predict the final exploit.

BLUES

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Bad for the Azzurri, who have perhaps been affected by the leaden climate due to the disappearance of Elena Fanchini. Mattia Casse, down third, is only 13th at 1’10” behind the winner. Christof Innerhofer is 18th. Guglielmo Bosca twentieth. While Dominik Paris, who was also skiing with quality, gets on his fork and falls. “Now I’m not well… I took a good smack on the ass. Let’s see how I am this afternoon and then think about the descent” his bitter words. Sereno is instead Casse: “James Crawford is not a surprise. He deservedly won. I skied well at the start and wasn’t fast at the end. Not at least to get into the top ten. I have two days of practice before the descent and I’m confident.”