(Reuters) -Alpine skiing World Cup downhill leader Sofia Goggia was scheduled to undergo surgery on Monday after breaking her tibia in her right leg after a bad crash in training in Ponte di Legno in Italy earlier in the day.
Italy’s Olympic gold medallist crashed after straddling a gate with her right leg while training giant slalom. A CT scan and MRI in Milan revealed fractures to both her tibia and malleolus bone (at the foot end of the tibia), the Italian Winter Sports Federation (FISI) said in a statement.
Goggia leads the World Cup downhill season standings with 350 points, ahead of Austria’s Stephanie Venier (261) and Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland (209).
The 31-year-old is a four-time winner of the overall downhill World Cup title and raced to gold in the downhill at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and silver at the 2022 Beijing Games.
However, her career has been riddled with injuries including torn anterior cruciate ligaments in both knees. She suffered multiple injuries in her left leg in a 2022 crash in Cortina d’Ampezzo but rebounded to race at the Pyeongchang Games less than a month later.
The World Cup circuit has been hit hard by injuries this season, with Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Petra Vlhova among skiers whose campaigns have been ended by crashes.
Kilde told reporters last week that he was unsure if he would ever return to his competitive best after his horror crash during a World Cup downhill race last month that has required two surgeries so far.
(Reporting by Lori EwingEditing by Christian Radnedge)
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