Italian wins her second gold medal on Cortina slopes
Sara Hector and Thea Louise Stjernesund share silver
Federica Brignone, the racing queen of Cortina, has won her second gold medal in the space of three days at the Winter Olympics. After her victory in the women’s Super-G on Friday, she won the giant slalom by just over six-tenths of a second.
As small as that gap sounds, it was an enormous margin in a race where there were only six-hundredths of a second between the three women who finished behind her; Sweden’s Sara Hector, Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund, and Brignone’s Italian teammate Lara Della Mea. The gap between Brignone and second place was the same as that between second and 15th.
It was a rare and beautiful display of high-speed skiing on L’Olympia delle Tofane by a woman who has found once-in-a-lifetime form at her home Olympics. After it was over, Hector and Stjernesund, who had tied for second place, both dropped to their knees and bowed down before her.
