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Downhill World Cup leader Goggia's season over with broken leg / Photo: Johann GRODER - APA/AFP/File
Downhill World Cup leader Goggia's season over with broken leg
Italy's 2018 Olympic downhill champion Sofia Goggia's season has been cut short after undergoing surgery on a double fracture to her right leg Monday in Milan, the Italian Winter Sports Federation (FISI) announced.
"Another injury that interrupts my pursuit of another downhill World Cup," said Goggia before going into surgery. "But this time too I will know how to get back up."
FISI said she would have to rest for at least 40 days before she could begin "the most active phase of physiotherapy".
"Turbo Goggia" leads the World Cup downhill standings by 89 points as she chases a fifth title in the discipline.
There are three further races scheduled for the regular season followed by the season-ending World Cup finals in Saalbach in Austria in mid-March.
Goggia suffered the injury training in Ponte di Legno in northern Italy.
"While taking a turn to the right, her right ski got caught in a gate, causing her to fall," FISI said.
Doctors who operated on her fitted a plate with seven screws.
Goggia has 24 World Cup victories, six in super-G and 18 in downhill, the most recent in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, in Austria.
She also has a long history of high-speed crashes and injuries. She has torn knee ligaments more than once and broken bones in both legs several times.
A knee injury ended her 2013 season and a broken arm cut short her 2020 campaign.
In December 2022, after she broke two fingers on the way to second place in the opening downhill at St. Moritz, she raced across the border and down to Milan for surgery.
She returned in time for a second downhill the next day and, with her left hand taped to her ski pole, flew down the course to win.
This season has also brought a string of serious injuries to other top skiers.
The women's circuit has already lost two reigning Olympic gold medallists -- Slovakia's slalom titleholder Petra Vlhova and Switzerland's downhill champion Corinne Suter both suffered season-ending knee injuries.
American star Mikaela Shiffrin, the overall World Cup leader, injured her left knee after crashing heavily in the opening downhill race in the Italian resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo last month, but should make her return to competition next weekend.
On the men's side, French former overall World Cup champion Alexis Pinturault and Austrian slalom specialist Marco Schwarz were sidelined due to knee injuries.
Norway's 2020 overall World Cup winner, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde sustained a deep cut to his shin in a crash.
D.Fischer--BlnAP
