Austrian ski racer Cornelia Hutter won the last downhill of the season at the World Cup Finals in the Saalbach-Hinterglemm winter center and grabbed the small crystal globe in the discipline, stealing it from Lara Gut-Behrami.
Cornelia Hutter recorded the best time in the difficult track conditions of 1:45.08 min, which was just her second World Cup downhill victory and first since 2017. She was only fourth in the standings in the discipline before the last start of the campaign, but managed to overtake all the competitors. It is important to specify that the second in the standings, Sofia Goggia, is injured and out for a long time.
Lara Gut-Behrami recorded a failure in today’s start as he finished 17th, with only those in the top 15 earning points for the final standings.
“Cornelia Hutter was obviously better today”, said Lara Gut-Behrami with a smile. “After all, to win the World Cup you have to be the best in the season and be able to adapt to any snow. It was difficult for me today and I lost the trophy. But it is clear that nothing is predetermined, nothing is certain. It would be absurd to turn everything in a negative way”, added the Swiss skier.
Ilka Stuhec finished second in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, just 0.17 sec behind the winner, and if she had won the start, Lara Gut-Behrami would have grabbed the small crystal globe in the discipline. Nicol Delago (Italy) finished third, 0.49 sec behind the winner, and the top 10 was completed by Christina Ager, Stephanie Venier, Mirjam Puchner, Michelle Gisin, Kira Weidle, Federica Brignone and Ariane Raedler.
For the first time in downhill history, there have been eight different winners in a World Cup season, and for the first time Cornelia Hutter has ever finished in the Top 3 of the overall standings. Cornelia Hutter is the first Austrian woman in five years with the small crystal globe in the discipline since Nicole Schmidhofer in 2018/2019.
