After winning bronze in the women’s downhill on Sunday, Italy’s Sofia Goggia was riding high. After all, she had finished behind Breezy Johnson and Emma Aicher, bringing home a medal on her home snow and hence, making Italian fans proud. Just two days later, everyone was hoping she could shine again in the women’s team combined event going up against Mikaela Shiffrin. But racing didn’t go as planned.

During the downhill part of the team combined, Goggia lost her balance, skidded, and fell sliding toward the safety nets. Luckily, the fall was clean, without any twisting or serious injury. Soon after, the Bergamo skier got up quickly and skied to the finish line, waving to her home crowd to show she was okay. Even so, the crash likely ended the medal hopes for both her and Lara della Mea.

With Sofia Goggia out of contention, Mikaela Shiffrin and her teammate Breezy Johnson wasted no time making their move.

Johnson raced first and clocked the fastest downhill time of 1:36.59. After the downhill leg, the standings saw Johnson in gold, Ariane Raedler in silver, and Laura Pirovano in bronze.

Though Johnson’s time was slightly slower than her gold-winning run on Sunday, but it still puts Team USA in a strong position. It now sets up Shiffrin perfectly to take over in the slalom leg, which begins at 13:00 GMT, where the final medals will be decided.

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While it was a big moment for Johnson… the race ended in heartbreak for Sofia Goggia. And fans were clearly gutted and took to social media right away!

Fans feel the pain as Sofia Goggia’s long journey makes this fall hit harder

“Sofia Goggia DNF. Classic inside-ski weighting. 🙁 Thankfully, she’s fine and able to ski away,” one fan added.

It’s no surprise that fans are worried about Sofia Goggia. After all, she has carried so much hope for Italy at these Games. She was even chosen as one of the final torchbearers at the opening ceremony… lighting the Olympic cauldron in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Goggia is not just a symbol. She has proven, again and again, that she belongs at the very top. She has gone head to head with the best in the world including Mikaela Shiffrin and beaten her in real competition. Like in December 2023 at St. Moritz…Goggia won the super G while Shiffrin finished fourth!

So when her race ended the way it did, the reaction was emotional. One more fan wrote, “Shame for Sofia Goggia, my favourite Italian #alpineskiing #Olympics2026.” Another added, “No! Sofia Goggia is out in the women’s team combined downhill event: controlled fall but decisive – obviously – for the elimination of both her and Lara Della Mea. What a shame!”

The pain in those words makes sense when you look at what Sofia Goggia has already done so far! She has competed at three Winter Olympics: in 2018, 2022 and now 2026. She won downhill gold at PyeongChang in 2018… becoming the first Italian woman to do so. Four years later, she followed it up with silver at the Beijing Games. And at Milan Cortina 2026 she added a bronze medal in the same event completing an incredible run of three straight Olympic medals in downhill.

That history is why seeing her exit this event the way she did hurts so much for Italian fans.   “Noooooo. Sofia Goggia has crashed. She was lucky not to get hurt,” another fan added.  The concern goes deeper because fans know how much her body has already been through.

Early in her career, Sofia Goggia tore the ACL in both knees in separate crashes. In 2012, she damaged both ligaments in her knee and fractured her tibial plateau. A year later, she tore her ACL again in a downhill crash in Lake Louise.

The injuries did not stop there. She fractured her ankle in 2018, broke her left arm badly in 2020, and suffered another serious knee fracture in 2021. Just weeks before the 2022 Beijing Olympics, she crashed again, hurting her knee and leg, yet still managed to race and win silver.

Later that year, Sofia Goggia even broke her hand at the start of a downhill and still finished second. In early 2024… another heavy crash left her with fractures in her leg that required surgery and of course months of recovery.

That long history is why moments like this hit differently. Fans are not just reacting to one fall but to years of pain, comebacks and courage. As one supporter simply put it, “Better luck next time.”