Dramatic final

Women’s downhill in Saalbach LIVE from 11.15 am

Conny Hütter (left) snatches the downhill globe from Lara Gut-Behrami.

(Bild: Christof Birbaumer, APA/BARBARA GINDL)

ÖSV jubilation in Saalbach: Conny Hütter won the last race of the season on Saturday and snatched the downhill crystal from Switzerland's Lara Gut-Behrami. It is the first crystal in the 31-year-old Styrian's career.

Behind Hütter, Ilka Stuhec from Slovenia (+0.17 seconds) finished in second place, with Nicol Delago from Italy (+0.49) in third. With Christina Ager, Stephanie Venier and Mirjam Puchner in fourth to sixth place, three more ÖSV ladies made a strong showing.

Christina Ager

(Bild: GEPA pictures)

Stephanie Venier

(Bild: GEPA pictures)

Michelle Gisin

(Bild: GEPA pictures)

Exciting until the end
Hütter set the fastest time with start number 12, Gut-Behrami followed with 14, was 1.89 seconds behind and had to hope that someone else would snatch victory away from the Styrian in front of 8450 spectators. Stuhec's run was once again very exciting, with the Slovenian coming within 17/100 of Hütter.

However, it was a nail-biter right to the end, as there were always skiers with the best times at the top. When Gut-Behrami dropped out of the top 15 and only one athlete was left at the top and Hütter could have taken second place, she breathed a sigh of relief in the collective ÖSV cheers. Gut-Behrami thus leaves with the three crystal globes for the overall World Cup, super-G and giant slalom. For the ÖSV women, it is the first in the speed discipline since Nicole Schmidhofer in the downhill in 2019.

Here are the final results:

Wind causes concerns
The coaches' request for a start time at 09:00, when the conditions would have been ideal, was not met because the TV broadcast would have clashed with that of the ski flying in Planica. When the start was scheduled for 11.15 a.m., the wind had already picked up, which is why some gates were replaced by individual poles due to the flickering flags. This led to a delay of almost 15 minutes.

Mowinckel ends career
After start number two, the race was stopped again as a skidder had crashed and had to be treated. As the bad weather front approached, it became increasingly darker, but it did not turn out to be the feared wind lottery. The Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel ended her career in 20th place.