Another big win for Lindsey Vonn

Manuèle Lang 19.01.2008 13:45 Uhr

USA’s Lindsey Vonn celebrated another big win today at Cortina d’Ampezzo where she won the downhill race by the impressive margin of 83/100 of a second on Sweden’s Anja Paerson, the winner at St Moritz while Canada’s Emily Brydon, the fastest in Friday’s training run was 3rd in front of her teammate Kelly Vanderbeek who lost 1,20 seconds. Austria’s Renate Goetschl, a ten-time winner here in the past years and the defending downhill World Cup champion was 5th a few tenths away from the podium.

It’s the Vonn’s first victory on the famed “Olimpia Tofana” course where she crashed a year ago after setting he fastest intermediate time. The Cortina d’Ampezzo events are considered as the season highlight on the women’s tour and each speed specialist dreams to excel on that demanding course situated in the superb Dolomite area used by the men during the 1956 Winter Olympics.

The last American winner in downhill was Picabo Street, Vonn’s former role model, who triumphed here several time in the 1990s. It has been Vonn’s long time plan to imitate her once here after reaching her first podium here four years ago yet she had failed each time since then mostly because of her too aggressive tactic.

“It’s for sure a special success for me today, it has always been a great goal for me to win that wonderful “Classic”,” an elate Vonn said after the race. “I fought hard but this time I managed to remain on course and avoid a major mistake as in recent seasons,” the leader in the downhill standings added.

“The conditions were difficult because of the low visibility and the softer snow in some parts, but we were all happy that it was possible to compete today after that long break.”

The last women’s downhill took place nearly four weeks ago at St Anton where she won both the speed event and the Super-combined. In the following weeks she was not as successful during the series of three weekends filled with technical races which allowed Nicole Hosp to move-up in the Overall World Cup standings.

She has a strong chance to catch the Austrian who didn’t race today in the next two days with the coming Super-G races planned here on Sunday and Monday.

Anja Paerson, in better shape in the speed events this winter, was a satisfied 2nd and her first downhill podium in Cortina d’Ampezzo where she already captured the Super-G and giant slalom races a few years ago.

“It’s surely nice to confirm my wins from St Moritz on this demanding course, Lindsey was certainly charging the whole way down today,” the reigning downhill World Champion said. “I enjoy being back on the podium after my disappointing results in recent weeks.”

With three skiers among the top-6, the Canadian Ski Team achieved a superb team performance in that competition. Brydon is the first Canadian to reach the podium in downhill since Kate Pace’s 3rd place finish in 1994.

Germany’s Maria Riesch was a far 10th this time which will cost her precious World Cup points.