Laura Pirovano clinched the women’s downhill World Cup title on Saturday in Kvitfjell, Norway, sealing the discipline after a run of sudden victories in the late season. The 28-year-old Italian won her third straight downhill race to claim the crystal globe and denied Breezy Johnson what would have been the American’s first World Cup win. Emma Aicher finished fifth, cutting Mikaela Shiffrin’s overall lead to 95 points with three races remaining.
Downhill title: Pirovano’s surge
Pirovano’s victory completed a stunning turnaround: until the beginning of March she had never stood on a World Cup podium in 124 races, and she moved from that mark to three straight wins to secure the downhill globe. She beat Breezy Johnson by 0. 15 seconds, with Kira Weidle-Winkelmann third at 0. 25 seconds off the lead. The sequence included back-to-back one-hundredth-of-a-second wins on home snow in Val di Fassa just two weeks earlier, and the Lillehammer result pushed her clear in the discipline standings by 83 points over second-placed Aicher.
The women’s field used the same course as the men but started lower on the mountain, reducing run times by around 15 seconds, and Pirovano capped a remarkable finish to the downhill campaign with another daring run. Pirovano had accumulated four fourth-place finishes earlier in the season before the recent string of wins transformed her downhill season into a title-winning charge.
Aicher, Shiffrin and the closing fight
Emma Aicher’s fifth place trimmed the gap to Mikaela Shiffrin in the overall standings to 95 points, with three races left on the calendar. Aicher was 0. 37 seconds slower than Pirovano in Lillehammer and remains in contention for the overall prize if she can keep accruing points across the remaining events. Shiffrin has not raced in downhill since her crash on the Olympic course in Cortina d’Ampezzo in January 2024 but was expected to start in the super-G the following day.
Immediate reactions from the piste
“It’s not possible. It’s crazy, ” Laura Pirovano, 28, Italian skier and World Cup competitor, said at the finish. “I have a lot of emotion. I still can’t understand everything. I am just beyond happy. “
She later reflected on the run and the season: “I don’t know, truly. Skiing the other races of the season, the feeling was the same. I don’t know what’s happening, honestly. ” In a courseside interview she added, “I knew the race would have been really difficult, so I felt honestly not so good. I was afraid to watch the times when I crossed the finish line, and I was so surprised to see the green light. Everything is still unbelievable. “
Quick context
The downhill discipline had been dominated earlier in the season by Lindsey Vonn, who took an early lead with multiple wins and podiums before injuries curtailed her campaign; Vonn crashed and tore her left ACL in the last downhill before the Milan Cortina Games and then suffered further leg damage in the Olympic downhill, leaving her future undecided. Dominik Paris won the men’s race as Italy opened the World Cup finals with two victories for the nation.
What comes next
With the downhill globe secured, Pirovano heads into the final races having rewritten her season after years without a podium. The next days will focus on the remaining three races in Norway, where Aicher can press across multiple disciplines to try to close the overall gap to Shiffrin, who may contest the super-G. The closing stages of the campaign will test whether Aicher can convert her momentum into a sustained challenge and whether Shiffrin will return to add points in speed events as the season reaches its finale in the downhill and adjacent races.
For now the spotlight remains on Pirovano’s late surge in downhill and the shrinking margin in the overall standings as the circuit heads into its final weekend (Saturday, ET).
