Sofia Goggia displays the hand she broke in yesterday's Alpine World Cup downhill in St Moritz ©Getty Images

Twenty-four hours after breaking her hand in the opening downhill race at the Alpine Ski World Cup in St Moritz and being airlifted to hospital for surgery, Sofia Goggia returned to the slopes to win the second women's race.

"Yesterday it was broken, today it was already fixed," said the 30-year-old Italian, Olympic downhill champion in 2018 and silver medallist at this year’s Beijing Winter Games.

Goggia, who finished second in yesterday’s opening race despite injuring her hand after hitting the third control gate in foggy and snowy conditions, was taken by helicopter to Milan for surgery and it was questionable whether she could even participate today, never mind win the race.

She raced with makeshift holes cut into her glove to accommodate her swollen left hand, which had a plate and nine screws inserted.

Yet she still skied a typically aggressive run on the full-length Corviglia course and won the race by 0.43 seconds, her 11th victory in the last 16 World Cup downhill races she has competed in.

"I couldn't push at the start gate and this is why I didn't have the gap of the training runs, but half a second is enough," she said of the victory margin.

"Also one hundredth of a second is enough."

It was her third downhill victory of the season as she finished ahead of Slovenia's Ilka Stuhec, with Germany's Kira Weidle third.

"I'm really happy, I'm really grateful because it was not guaranteed at all that I could be at the start gate today," Goggia added.

"I really understand that it was a bit risky, but I said to myself that after Beijing (when she recovered from a knee injury to win silver in the 2022 Olympic downhill), I could endure everything and this is exactly what I did."

In contrast to the weather conditions of the day before, today’s race took place in perfect weather.

Stuhec, 32, the downhill world champion from 2017 and 2019, reached her first World Cup podium in nearly four years.

Weidle, who struggled in the poor conditions on Friday when she finished 24th, took the early lead with bib No. 6 and reached her first podium of the season in third place.

Meanwhile, the reigning overall World Cup women's champion Mikaela Shiffrin backed up yesterday's sixth place by finishing fourth.

The speed weekend in St. Moritz will conclude tomorrow with a women's super-G race.