Scary moment for Olympic gold medalist Sofia Goggia ... the alpine skier banged her head and busted her leg during a violent crash at the World Cup on Sunday -- just weeks before she's supposed to defend her title at the winter games in Beijing.
Luckily for Goggia, the injuries aren't catastrophic.
The frightening incident was caught on video ... showing the 29-year-old going full speed downhill at the Cortina d'Ampezzo Super-G event.
Sofia Goggia won 8 of her last 9 downhills and, up until this morning, was probably the biggest Olympic gold-medal favorite in Alpine skiing. Now she has to come back from this crash, and a litany of leg injuries, in three weeks for the Olympic downhill. https://t.co/Atn4Tl9dtA pic.twitter.com/3EfatEa96u
— Nick Zaccardi (@nzaccardi) January 23, 2022
Everything appeared normal until the Italian skier lost control on a turn ... sending Goggia flying through the air.
Goggia -- who was wearing a helmet -- eventually landed and slid headfirst down the mountain before finally coming to a complete stop.
It looked very bad ... but thankfully, the Italian Ski Federation announced she suffered a left knee strain, a partial tear in her cruciate ligament and a small fibula fracture.
Goggia's rehabilitation will start on Monday as she's determined to defend her downhill gold medal title at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing ... which happens on Feb. 15.
"It's a shame that this injury comes in a very important moment of the season," Goggia said, "but in the next few hours I'll start the physio treatment so I can try to defend my title in the discipline I love the most."
Goggia won a gold medal in the downhill event at the 2018 Winter Olympics -- the first woman to do so for the country of Italy.