Pirovano completes World Cup downhill coup. Aicher reduces gap on Shiffrin to 95 points

By Canadian Press on March 21, 2026.

KVITFJELL, Norway (AP) — Laura Pirovano won the last women’s World Cup downhill of the season on Saturday and secured the discipline title, a prize Lindsey Vonn was favorite to win until getting injured at the Olympics and ending her season prematurely.

Pirovano’s only remaining challenger for the title, Emma Aicher, finished fifth, as the German skier reduced the gap to leader Mikaela Shiffrin in the overall standings to 95 points with three races remaining.

Shiffrin has not raced in downhill since her crash in a World Cup race on the Olympic course in Cortina d’Ampezzo in January 2024, but the American was expected to start in Sunday’s super-G.

Pirovano completed her stunning downhill season by clinching her third career victory, denying Olympic and world downhill champion Breezy Johnson what would have been the American’s first-ever triumph on the World Cup.

Pirovano beat Johnson by 0.15 seconds, with Aicher’s German teammate Kira Weidle-Winkelmann finishing 0.25 behind in third.

“I knew the race would have been really difficult so I felt honestly not so good,” Pirovano said in a course-side interview.

“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.”

The Italian had never finished on the podium in 124 career World Cup races — until getting back-to-back wins, both by the smallest margin of one-hundredth of a second, on home snow in Val di Fassa two weeks ago.

Those results saw her overtake Vonn in the discipline standings.

In her second year back after her initial retirement in 2019, the 41-year-old Vonn dominated the first half of the season with two wins and three more podiums from the first five downhills.

Taking a commanding lead in the downhill standings and positioning herself for what would be a record-equaling ninth discipline title, Vonn then wasn’t able to add to her season tally.

She first crashed and tore her left ACL in the last downhill before the Milan Cortina Games — a race that was then canceled — before badly damaging her left leg in a frightening crash at the Olympic downhill a week later, leaving her future in the sport undecided.

On Saturday, the women used the same course as the men for their downhill but started lower down the mountain, reducing run times by around 15 seconds.

Dominik Paris won the men’s race as Italy opened the World Cup finals with two victories.

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AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

The Associated Press