OLYMPICS: Sofia Goggia lights Games cauldron in Cortina

Sofia Goggia, Italy's first women's downhill Olympic champion, lit the cauldron in Cortina d'Ampezzo on Friday at the culmination of the opening ceremony for the Milano Cortina Winter Games.

The 33-year-old, one of Italy's strongest medal hopes for the 2026 Games, took the Olympic torch from Gustavo Thoeni, the leading Italian skier of the 1970s, before completing the ceremony in front of watching athletes.

Goggia, who won her downhill gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, is preparing for what may be her final Olympics and the first on domestic snow at Cortina d'Ampezzo, a slope she has dominated throughout her career.

Earlier on Friday at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre, she set the eighth fastest time in the second training run for Sunday's downhill.

In 2022, two weeks after suffering a minor leg fracture and torn ligaments, Goggia hurtled down the course at the Beijing Olympics to claim a silver medal in the downhill, a comeback the Italian skier described as a miracle.

Born in 1992 in Bergamo, in northern Italy's Alpine foothills, Goggia grew up in an environment that made skiing feel less like a sport and more like a natural extension of daily life.

Aged nine, when asked about her biggest sporting dream, she had replied confidently: "To win the Olympic downhill".

-Reporting by Julien Pretot;Editing by Alison Williams and Christian Radnedge/Reuters