Lindsey Vonn has highs and lows at Val d’Isère
The four-times World Cup winner crashed out of yesterday’s super-G race at Val d’Isère after entering a gate slightly too wide, as Elisabeth Goergl beat Olympic champion Anna Fenninger by .05 seconds to lead an Austrian 1-2. Although Vonn did no damage to her troublesome right knee – after only starting to race again recently following two operations – she landed heavily on her right elbow.
“I was risking everything and attacking the course. That sometimes happens in super-G, you don’t have any training runs and you have just one inspection,” Vonn said. “I hit my elbow, somehow funny. I have some ice on it. It’s just a little bit swollen but no big deal.”
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Hide AdAfter winning Saturday’s downhill, Vonn was looking for a fourth consecutive podium finish and was .01 ahead of Georgl’s time on the first split. “I didn’t feel quite as sharp as I normally do,” Vonn said. “I was a little bit tired, yesterday was a very long day.”
She was looking to move level with Austrian great Annemarie Moser-Pröll for all-time wins. Perhaps fittingly, Vonn can now do so at the Austrian resort of Bad Kleinkirchheim, where there is a downhill and a super-G set for the weekend of 10-11 January.
After going too tightly into a turn, Vonn went inside on her skis and slid off course, prompting gasps from fans at the bottom of the Oreiller-Killy course. She lay on her back for a few moments then flexed her right leg, before getting up.
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“I was on the limit and hit some softer snow and lost a little bit of elevation, and then I wasn’t able to make the gate,” the 30-year-old Vonn said. “The most important thing is my knees are good.”
Overall leader Tina Maze of Slovenia finished third, .13 behind Georgl. “The course today was really tricky and I kind of like that,” the 33-year-old Goergl said. “My coaches reported that there were some weird turns.”
It was the former super-G world champion’s seventh World Cup race win, and her first since winning a super-G in the Italian resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo in January. Goergl finished second in Saturday’s downhill. Fenninger has three podiums this season, having won the season-opening giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, in late October and finishing second in downhill at Lake Louise, Canada, earlier this month.
Swiss skier Lara Gut was looking for her second super-G win of the season and finished .23 behind in fourth. Italian Nadia Fanchini finished fifth ahead of American Julia Mancuso.
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Hide AdYesterday’s course, with its fast top section and sudden changes of direction, proved hard to tame.
Fabienne Suter of Switzerland, Austria’s Regina Sterz and German Viktoria Rebensburg, who was third in Saturday’s downhill, all made much the same mistake, taking a right turn too fast and veering off course as they approached the mid-section.
“I don’t know why the others had so many problems. My timing was pretty good,” the 25-year-old Fenninger said. “You never know because super-G is so different from downhill. Everything has to be perfect on the course.”
Maze thought she could have done a little better. “It was a little tough at the top, I had some trouble,” said Maze, the 2013 World Cup winner, who is competing in all five disciplines. “If I hadn’t lost too much time, it would have been a better race.”
Maze leads overall with 656 points, Fenninger is second with 407, while Vonn is third with 312. “It’s hard doing all the events,” Maze said. “I didn’t have so much energy.”
Marcel Hirscher beat Olympic champion Ted Ligety by a large margin in Alta Badia, Italy, yesterday in an unusually bumpy World Cup giant slalom race for his third consecutive victory in technical events. Extending his first-run lead, the three-times defending overall champion from Austria clocked a two-run combined time of two minutes, 30.17 seconds on a Gran Risa course with so little snow that it was much more rugged than usual.
“It was definitely one of the toughest races this season. It was like mogul skiing or moto cross skiing,” Hirscher said. “But we’re not searching for easy races. We’re searching for challenges.”
Ligety, the American who has twice won this race, moved up from seventh after the opening leg to finish second, 1.45 seconds behind. Thomas Fanara of France placed third, a further three hundredths back.
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