Daryl Homer, the only U.S. man to earn an individual World Fencing Championships sabre medal, clinched a berth in a second straight Olympics on Saturday.
Homer, 25, lost in the first round of a World Cup event in Warsaw, Poland, but his international ranking is high enough that he clinched the first of two U.S. men’s sabre spots in Rio.
Homer lost in the 2012 Olympic quarterfinals, earned silver at the 2015 World Championships and is ranked No. 7 in the world.
Homer, seeking to become the first U.S. Olympic individual men’s sabre medalist since 1984 and first gold medalist ever, will be joined on the U.S. men’s sabre team in Rio by either World junior champion Eli Dershwitz or 2012 Olympian Jeff Spear.
However, Homer and Dershwitz or Spear will compete individually only in Rio as there is no men’s team sabre at the Games this year.
MORE: U.S. athletes qualified for Rio Olympics
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ST. MORITZ, Switzerland — It was a bittersweet day for the Italian ski team when Elena Curtoni and Sofia Goggia finished 1-2 in a World Cup downhill held in difficult conditions Friday but Goggia came away with two broken fingers in her left hand.
Goggia, the top downhiller on the circuit, hit her hand on the third gate of the Corviglia course.
Goggia, who won gold and silver in downhill at the last two Olympics, respectively, immediately knew something was wrong and took her glove off in the finish area before having her hand wrapped up.
Video is here.
The Italian team said Goggia broke her index and middle fingers and was being transported to Milan for immediate surgery with the aim of getting her back to St. Moritz by evening to race in another downhill scheduled for Saturday.
“I felt immediately after the impact that something had happened to the hand,” Goggia said. “At the finish I could hardly move it. It’s too bad, because it was a great race. I’ll do everything I can to be ready for Saturday’s downhill.”
It was a similar scenario to when Curtoni won her previous race in Cortina d’Ampezzo last season and Goggia crashed two weeks before the Beijing Olympics, injuring a ligament in her left knee and sustaining a light fracture in that leg. Goggia still managed to come back in time to to win a silver medal at the games.
“It’s too bad, because it would be great to share the celebration and anthem with her,” Curtoni said. “It seems like a curse when I win that something happens to her. I’m not doing it on purpose, I swear.”
Curtoni was the second starter and took advantage of better conditions in her run to edge Goggia by 0.29 seconds on a course that was shortened due to overnight snowfall.
The race was interrupted immediately before Goggia was due to start with the No. 10 bib after a course worker fell and had to be helped off the piste — prompting a delay of more than five minutes.
The delay meant that the ongoing snowfall covered up the racing line, while fog also moved in over the middle of the course.
Still, Goggia — who had won the opening two downhills of the season — was the only racer who came close to challenging Curtoni.
Reigning Olympic champion Corinne Suter of Switzerland finished third on home snow, 0.73 behind, and was the only racer to join Curtoni during the podium festivities with Goggia already headed away for medical exams.
Americans Breezy Johnson and Mikaela Shiffrin finished fifth and sixth, respectively.
Shiffrin, the overall World Cup leader, was racing the downhill in St. Moritz for the first time.
“That was my top form for today so I’m very happy with that,” Shiffrin said. “I felt like I didn’t risk something.”
It was the third career win for Curtoni, who finished fifth in the Beijing Olympics downhill last season.
Curtoni, who grew up in an area of northern Italy just across the border, achieved the first podium result of her career by placing third in a downhill at St. Moritz in 2016. She also finished second in a super-G in St. Moritz last season. So now three of her nine career podium results have come at the Swiss resort.
“I really like it here,” Curtoni said. “My original home is right behind this mountain.”
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Rido per non piangere 😂 pic.twitter.com/99vImYs5QV
— iamsofiagoggia (@goggiasofia) December 16, 2022

NBC Sports and Peacock combine to air live coverage of the 2022-23 Alpine skiing season, including races on the World Cup, which starts this weekend.
Coverage begins with the traditional season-opening giant slaloms in Soelden, Austria, this Saturday and Sunday, streaming live on Peacock.
The first of four stops in the U.S. — the most in 26 years — is Thanksgiving weekend with a women’s giant slalom and slalom in Killington, Vermont. The men’s tour visits Beaver Creek, Colorado the following week, as well as Palisades Tahoe, California, and Aspen, Colorado after worlds in Courchevel and Meribel, France.
NBC Sports platforms will broadcast all four U.S. stops in the Alpine World Cup season, plus four more World Cups in other ski and snowboard disciplines. All Alpine World Cups in Austria will stream live on Peacock.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who last year won her fourth World Cup overall title, is the headliner. Shiffrin, who has 74 career World Cup race victories, will try to close the gap on the only Alpine skiers with more: Lindsey Vonn (82) and Ingemar Stenmark (86). Shiffrin won an average of five times per season the last three years and is hopeful of racing more often this season.
On the men’s side, 25-year-old Swiss Marco Odermatt returns after becoming the youngest man to win the overall, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, since Marcel Hirscher won the second of his record eight in a row in 2013.
2022-23 Alpine Skiing World Cup Broadcast Schedule
Schedule will be added to as the season progresses. All NBC Sports TV coverage also streams live on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.
*Delayed broadcast.
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