Braathen gets stunning victory in World Cup slalom at Wengen

Wengen, Switzerland: Soaring from 29th place after the first run, Lucas Braathen scored a stunning win in a World Cup slalom on Sunday.

No skier had made such a jump up the standings to win a two-run men’s World Cup race for more than 20 years at least, according to the ski-db.com database.

Braathen sat in the finish-area leader’s box for 45 minutes looking steadily more disbelieving and then in tears before watching the last racer. His Norway teammate Henrik Kristoffersen then straddled a gate within sight of a clear victory.

The error gifted the win to Braathen who was almost one second faster than any rival in the second run on snow that cut up in the warm sunshine before Kristoffersen started with two seconds in hand to protect his lead.

In the end, Braathen was 0.22 seconds ahead of Daniel Yule of Switzerland. The 2010 Olympic champion, Giuliano Razzoli of Italy, was 0.29 back in third for his best result in six years at age 37.

Braathen’s win was also remarkable for starting the day among the lowranked racers wearing bib No. 31.

It was the second straight Sunday that a Swiss slalom was won by an outsider, after Johannes Strolz wore No. 38 to victory at nearby Adelboden.

“Words cannot describe how grateful I am,” said the 21-year-old Braathen, whose ranking dipped after a season-ending knee injury one year ago crashing over the finish line in the Adelboden giant slalom.

Braathen showed his talent before that serious injury by winning the season-opening giant slalom at Soelden, Austria in October 2020.

Braathen had also been fast in the first run Sunday, until losing rhythm in the bottom half to barely qualify among the top 30 racers who advance to the second leg.

Egle gets win at Oberhof, Germany takes luge relay

Oberhof, Germany: Madeleine Egle of Austria was the winner of a World Cup women’s luge race on Sunday, her series-best fifth victory of the season.

Germany got the next four spots, with Julia Taubitz second, Anna Berreiter third, Natalie Geisenberger fourth and Cheyenne Rosenthal fifth. But Egle topped them all, becoming just the second non-german woman to win at Oberhof in 37 major international races there.

Andrea Tagwerker of Austria won a women’s race at Oberhof in January 1997. Egle joined her on that list 25 years later, and slightly improved her slim chances of winning the overall season title alive going into next weekend’s series finale at St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Taubitz leads Egle by 57 points in the standings with one race left. Taubitz needs only a seventh-place finish at St. Moritz to clinch the title. Germany gets women’s bobsled sweep, Taylor gets points title

St. Moritz, Switzerland: German sleds swept the medals in the women’s World Cup bobsled finale of the season Sunday, and Elana Meyers Taylor of the U.S. clinched the seasonlong points title.

Kim Kalicki and Lisa Buckwitz finished two runs in 2 minutes, 15.50 seconds to get the victory, followed by Mariama Jamanka and Kira Lupperheide in 2:15.54. Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi were third in 2:15.57.

The U.S. grabbed fourth and fifth. Kaillie Humphries and Sylvia Hoffman finished in 2:15.59, and Meyers Taylor shared her sled with Kaysha Love and crossed the line in 2:16.14.

Meyers Taylor won the overall two-woman points title for the second time, not including the monobob — or single-seater — overall championship that she clinched on Saturday. She finished the two-person season with 1,505 points, 19 ahead of Nolte.

Her title was a reward for competing in all eight World Cup races of the season. Most top drivers skipped the World Cup race in Sigulda, Latvia on New Year’s weekend; Meyers Taylor competed and won, giving her 225 points.

Nolte, Kalicki, Humphries and Jamanka all skipped that weekend, basically surrendering their hopes at the points title.

Italian skier Brignone wins World Cup super-g with gutsy run

Altenmarkt-zauchensee, Austria: Federica Brignone saw a gutsy run rewarded with the victory Sunday in the fifth women’s World Cup super-g of the season.

Racing in perfect, sunny conditions, the Italian gained about three-tenths of a second on her rivals with an attacking and risky approach in the middle part of the Kälberloch course.

While many racers posted faster times at the first split, no one matched Brignone’s pace in the turning steep section.

“I was really attacking from the top to the bottom,” said the overall World Cup champion from two seasons ago.

“Today was not easy to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, because there’s some girls really fast in some sections, but then making a small mistake.”

The top 20 finished within 1.04 seconds of the winning time.

Corinne Suter came closest with a strong finish to close the gap to Brignone to 0.04 seconds. It was the best result of the season for the downhill world champion from Switzerland.

Figure skater Isabeau Levito on the rise, but Olympic dreams on hold

Philadelphia: At 14, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito is too young to compete in next month’s Winter Olympics.

But she recently set herself up to be the future of women’s skating by winning the bronze medal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Nashville, Tenn.

Levito, who was born in Philadelphia, lives in Mount Holly, N.J., and trains at the Igloo Ice Rink in Mount Laurel, has powerful footwork, solid triple jumps, and a soft, artistic style that most skaters don’t develop until years competing at the senior level — if ever.

She was the junior national champion in 2021.

This season, she also won gold at the Junior Grand Prix competition in France and the bronze medal at another Junior Grand Prix, in Austria.