Federica Brignone sends home fans wild with second gold as Shiffrin struggles
Federica Brignone, the racing queen of Cortina, has won her second gold medal in the space of three days at the Winter Olympics.After her victory in the women’s Super-G on Friday, she won the giant slalom by just over six-tenths of a second.As small as that gap sounds, it was an enormous margin in a race where there were only six-hundredths of a second between the three women who finished behind her; Sweden’s Sara Hector, Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund, and Brignone’s Italian teammate Lara Della Mea.The gap between Brignone and second place was the same as that between second and 15th.It was a rare and beautiful display of high-speed skiing on L’Olympia delle Tofane by a woman who has found once-in-a-lifetime form at her home Olympics.
After it was over, Hector and Stjernesund, who had tied for second place, both dropped to their knees and bowed down before her.“I crossed the finish line and I said: ‘I don’t know if it’s enough,’” Brignone said.“Then I heard the crowd and I said: ‘Oh, maybe yes.’ Then I turned around and I saw number one.”She wasn’t the only one who heard them.
The grandstands at the finish line were bouncing with overjoyed Italian fans, and the noise must have carried all the way across the other side of the valley.“I have too many emotions.I can’t believe it, this is just crazy,” Brignone said.“My attitude was that I would be happy just to be here.That was already an achievement.
Just to be back as an athlete.”Three hundred days ago, Brignone could not say whether she would ever again be able to walk normally, let alone race such as this.Her crash during the giant slalom at the Italian national championships last April broke her left knee in four places and tore her anterior cruciate ligament.The 35-year-old had three rounds of surgery, a series of metal screws and plates inserted into the joint, then started out on seven months of intensive rehabilitation.For most of the past year, all Italian sport has been left sweating over the question of whether she would be fit to compete here in Cortina or not.
The physical recovery was only one part of what Brignone had to go through to be able to do it,The mental recovery was another,The great Mikaela Shiffrin, who beat Brignone in this event back in 2018, has spoken openly about how she has been struggling with PTSD since a bad crash at Killington in November 2024, when she sustained a puncture wound that very nearly killed her by ripping open her colon,Shriffin is 30 and has won more World Cup races than any skier in history but readily admits that she is relearning how to race in the way she took for granted before that accident,She finished 11th here, almost a full second behind Brignone.
It was Brignone’s fifth Olympic medal after the silver and two bronzes that she won in Beijing and Pyeongchang,No Italian skier has ever won more,
Jimmy Kimmel on Maga: ‘It’s such a delicate balance between stupid and evil’
Jimmy Kimmel talked about Pam Bondi and this week’s judiciary hearings as well as the latest climate-destroying victory for the Trump administration.The late-night host said that Donald Trump “might be feeling a bit lonely this Valentine’s Day” as his recent fundraising email leads with the question: “Do you still love me?”Kimmel said that then, “like a lot of dirtbag boyfriends, it asks you for money”.He said that for Valentine’s Day, Donald and Melania Trump will be enjoying dinner – “separately of course” – before speculating that over at JD Vance’s household, the vice-president won’t be getting his wife a gift as “he likes it when she makes him go sleep on the couch”. Kimmel joked: “That’s his sexy time.”This week Vance has been “weakly defending his boss” with yet more anger over “what are now known as the Trump-Epstein files” given how many times the president is mentioned in them
Jimmy Kimmel on the US justice department’s handling of the Epstein files: ‘A brazen cover-up’
Late-night hosts recapped US attorney general Pam Bondi’s contentious congressional hearing as she faced tough questions over the justice department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.Jimmy Kimmel opened Wednesday’s monologue with a begrudging acknowledgement that Donald Trump won the one and only “Undisputed Champion of Coal Award” from an organization called “the Washington Coal Club”. The prize “brings his real award total to zero”, he joked.“All he wants is awards and for everything to be named after him,” he continued. “The Kennedy Center, Dulles airport, Penn Station – I mean, if that’s the way to keep him happy, I have another suggestion for something we could name after him
Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus: the story of one of Australia’s favourite political memes
OK, Josh, so there’s a leadership challenge incoming, but everyone is talking about this “Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus” meme, so where did it come from?It’s one of the great memes of Australian political history, Krishani. Let’s go back to May 2019, when Taylor was the minister for energy in the Morrison government. Just weeks before then PM Scott Morrison would win “the unwinnable election” against Bill Shorten, Taylor was in the midst of local politicking, posting on Facebook about transport projects in his electorate of Hume
Comedians pick on me for my loud laugh – but nothing will make me stop | Jane Howard
I thought Daniel Kitson was just about ready to kick me out of the comedy room. He had already picked on me several times for laughing too loud, too readily (“that wasn’t even a joke”, he chastised me at one point). I was trying hard to suppress my laughter – to hold it in, to hold it back, to not fully express the joy I was feeling. I was being somewhat successful. And then I wasn’t
Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: ‘A code orange de-mental emergency going on here right now’
Late-night hosts unpacked the Trump administration’s continued attempts to distract from and underplay the Epstein files.It took barely a glance at Donald Trump’s social media posts on Tuesday for Jimmy Kimmel to know: “We’ve got a code orange de-mental emergency going on here right now. I mean, he’s gone. He’s totally gone.”The host focused in particular on the US president’s meltdown over the $4
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was never a love story. It was a warning
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film about the gap between what we think we can control and what happens when reality hits. Over the years, many critics and fans have celebrated Michel Gondry’s film as a tender-hearted love story. But a rewatch might reveal that Gondry’s second collaboration with postmodern American screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is much closer to another, twistier genre: hard sci-fi.By now, the story of Eternal Sunshine is familiar. Depressed introvert Joel (Jim Carrey) meets Clementine (Kate Winslet), whose box-dyed hair colour and moods change as often as the weather
BrewDog could be broken up as craft beer business put up for sale
Did you buy a coffee machine with a tax refund? It may have affected Australia’s interest rate
Reeves appoints higher pay advocate to fight skills shortages as chief economic adviser
Trump ‘plans to roll back’ some metal tariffs; US inflation weaker than expected in January - business live
Penalty notice: Euro Car Parks fined £473,000 for ignoring regulator
US inflation falls to 2.4% in January after Trump’s tariffs led to price fluctuations