By Alan Baldwin
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Lindsey Vonn captured headlines before and during the Winter Games but fellow U.S. great Mikaela Shiffrin and home favourite Federica Brignone turned out to be the true comeback queens of the women's Alpine ski slopes.
Vonn, the 2010 downhill champion attempting to become the oldest Alpine Olympic medallist at 41 despite a serious knee injury, provided a compelling against-the-odds narrative with her unquenchable spirit and determination.
Her agonising crash in the downhill, the first race on the schedule, eclipsed compatriot Breezy Johnson's gold medal as Vonn's screams were broadcast around the world and she was winched off the mountain to hospital.
Johnson's achievement set a tone nonetheless, with the 30-year-old adding the Olympic title to the world gold she won last year yet still something of an underdog given that she has never won a World Cup race and had appeared only once on the podium this season.
She seized her moment, and so too did the champions that followed.
HOLLYWOOD FEEL-GOOD STORY
Brignone's success had all the ingredients for a Hollywood feel-good story - the 35-year-old on top of the world when it all came crashing down last April with a multiple leg fracture leaving many questioning whether she would race again.
The giant slalom world champion fought her way back and then produced a near-miracle.
Brignone, who had said she just wanted to take part in a home Games, dominated the super-G and beat France's Romane Miradoli by 0.41 of a second.
"I told myself that it was a "make it or break it", but I never thought I would win," she said.
That might have been time for the final credits of the movie but then she did it again, completing a golden double in the giant slalom.
"I think my secret was not to feel any pressure, just to be happy to be here," she said.
Shiffrin had not won an Olympic medal since 2018 and missed out on a team combined medal after a surprisingly slow slalom run left her and Johnson fourth in a race won by Austria's Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber.
The most successful skier in World Cup history, with a record 108 wins, was only 11th in the giant slalom -- a discipline she has had mental challenges with since a serious crash at the end of 2024.
“When I think about where I was last year I was like, ‘I don't know, maybe I'll never race again.’ So here we are in a totally different position,” Shiffrin said after the giant, seeing the positives.
In 2022 she had arrived at the Beijing Games as a big U.S. medal hope and left empty-handed. The chances of a repeat blank suddenly looked very real.
With one slalom remaining, Shiffrin held her nerve. Not only that, she dominated.
The time gap between 2014 champion Shiffrin and silver medallist Camille Rast of Switzerland, the only woman to beat her in slalom this season, was a mighty 1.5 seconds.
All the winning margins in previous women's Olympic slaloms back to the 1998 Nagano Games added together come to 1.51 seconds. In 2022, the difference between gold and silver was 0.08.
Shiffrin, like Brignone before her, had absolutely nailed it.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
