Federica Brignone used the advice of her brother in the start gate as motivation to win her second World Cup race in Canada on the bounce. In horrendous second run conditions, the Italian moved up from sixth after the first run to win from Lara Gut-Behrami with Mikaela Shiffrin battling to third. Clara Direz took fourth for France with Petra Vlhova succombing to the conditions after leading the first run and ending up fifth.
Conditions for the first run were not picture perfect but they were good enough to run a fairly even race. Vlhiova took the lead from Shiffrin with Gut-behrami in third. Marta Bassino challenged in fourth with rising Croatian star, Zrinka Ljutic in fifth. All five were just about within a second of the lead.
With five racers from outside the top 40 starters making the second run as weather conditions improved, Wendy Holdener was the big name to miss the cut while Maryna Gasienica-Daniel and Alice Robinson crashed out.
With the weather deteriorating badly for the second run, the wind affected times. Many racers shook their head in dismay that their first run performances had been destroyed by the weather.
Clara Direz, France's only second run competitor took the bull by the horns and attacked. Looking for every opportunity to make time she was rewarded with the second fastest second run time that saw her move up from 13th after the first run to challenge for the podium, eventually finishing in fourth, a career best result.
Direz could hardly believe that she was in the lead when she came down through the finish and her margin of lead, almost a second was also impressive.
Direz came into the weekends races ranked 42 on the World Cup draw. Her tenth in the first race saw her move into the top thirty and the 50 World Cup points she took for fourth place sees her move up to 22nd.
Racing does not always happen on bluebird days and Brignone admitted after the race that she had been training in tough conditions over the last month and this helped her to ski fast on the second run.
While Lara Gut-Behrami tried to battle the elements, she had to contend with the worst of the weather as she tried to add to her two wins already this season. Strong winds at the top hindered her chances of bettering the time set by Brignone but she still managed to sit in second and stay there.
Both Shiffrin and Vlhova suffered bad conditions as the weather through everything at the racers. Shiffrin managed to do just enough to take third overall but Vlhova saw her chances of hanging on to the lead disappear with small errors and strong gusts of wind. Vlhova still had the grace to go to the three girls on the podium and congratulate them.
Racers that took the game to the weather were rewarded with success but those that were spooked by the weather, suffered time losses that were neigh on impossible to get back.
This was outdoor sport at its frustrating worst.
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