Alpine skiing-Brignone started as an underdog but the tiger took over

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 12 : Federica Brignone said she was an underdog but the tiger took over as the Italian roared to an astonishing super-G gold medal on home snow at the Milano Cortina Olympics on Thursday.

In April last year, only weeks after winning giant slalom gold at the world championships, the two times overall World Cup champion and multiple medal winner did not know if she still had an Alpine skiing career to look forward to.

With multiple leg fractures and a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) from a giant slalom crash at the Italian Championships, Brignone had to focus on walking again before she could get back on skis.

"The gold medal? Never. Until now," she said on Thursday of her Olympic hopes.

"Until I was standing on the podium. It was so hard."

SLOW AND PAINFUL PROCESS 

The comeback has been a slow and painful process every step of the way, one somewhat overshadowed in recent weeks by the drama of U.S. speed queen Lindsey Vonn attempting to race with a ruptured ACL. The Italian returned to the slopes seven months after the accident and made her return to the World Cup only in January.

"I got injured at the best moment of my career, of my life," she said last June. "I do not want to retire from skiing now, like that." 

Simply competing at a home Games after such a journey might have been enough for some and while Brignone dared to dream, she was not expecting miracles.

Then the tiger painted on her helmet, a nod to her nickname and reputation as a skier equipped with fearsome determination and tremendous inner strength, began to stir.

"I don't think I've ever been this good in the last 10 months," she told reporters on Thursday after going top from bib number six and then watching a string of