CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Italy's Federica Brignone made it seem easy as she blew away rivals and looked set for her second Alpine skiing gold medal of the Milano Cortina Olympics after a storming first giant slalom run on Sunday.
What had been a tightly packed leaderboard, with three skiers tied at the top including Sweden's reigning champion Sara Hector, was blasted spectacularly aside by the 35-year-old world champion.
Brignone, who won an astonishing super-G gold to cement her comeback after suffering career-threatening injury last April, completed the run 0.74 of a second faster than the previous pacesetters according to provisional results.
Smooth and swift, the racer with a tiger painted on her helmet roared in delight at the time, punching the air in the finish area.
"It was such an easy run, because the snow was so easy," said Brignone, who started 14th.
"You just have to go straight, apart from the initial curves it's really very easy. I tried to attack, to be clean and clever on the changes of terrain."
Germany's Lena Duerr then moved into second place, 0.34 off Brignone's pace-setting 1:03.23, after starting 16th down the gleaming Olimpia delle Tofane piste.
Brignone's compatriot Sofia Goggia, 17th on the start list, slotted into the bronze medal position with 0.46 to make up in the second run.
Hector, Norway's Thea Louise Stjernesund and Italian-born Lara Colturi, who competes for Albania, all set the same time of one minute 03.97 seconds.
Mikaela Shiffrin, the U.S. great chasing her first Olympic medal since 2018, was seventh and 1.02 off the pace.
Austria's Julia Scheib, the pre-race favourite with four wins in eight giants this season, was in 11th place and one behind New Zealand's Alice Robinson with Switzerland's Camille Rast lying 12th.
"It was fun to ski but I did not have a perfect run," said Scheib, of a run set by Robinson's coach.
The second run was scheduled for 1230GMT, with the American coach setting the piste.
(Additional reporting by Julien Pretot and Sara Rossi, editing by Ken Ferris)
