Stuhec completes Val Gardena double in Super-G

In-form Ilka Stuhec won Wednesday's women's World Cup Super-G to follow up her downhill success on the slopes of Val Gardena 24 hours earlier. The Slovenian completed the double at the Italian ski station by coming in five hundredths of a second clear of Nicole Schmidhofer and Tina Weirather, who tied for second. Her margin of victory would have been wider but for a mistake before the final section of the race. It confirmed her return to prominence after a 2017/2018 Olympic season blighted by injury, with Tuesday's win her first in a year and a half. Stuhec's welcome return to the top of the podium was tempered slightly by the absence of several big names including runaway overall leader Mikaela Shiffrin who won the first two Super-Gs of the season. Olympic downhill champion Sofia Goggia is still out with a fractured ankle while the American Lindsey Vonn will be out of action at least until January because of a knee injury. Two-time world giant slalom champion Tessa Worley was also a noteable absentee from the two races in Italy. The French star was forced to pull out with a knee injury last week sustained in a heavy fall at Lake Louise on December 2. Even though she was not at Val Gardena, Shiffrin still heads the World Cup Super-G standings, 25 points ahead of Ragnhild Mowinckel, and is a massive 330 points ahead of Schmidhofer in the overall. Wednesday's race replaced the women's downhill originally scheduled for Val d'Isere but which had to be cancelled due to poor snow conditions at the start of the month.