Lindsey Vonn simply said after taking her third win in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy and eighth podium there, “It's good to be back on top.” Vonn took the win ahead of Tina Maze with Leanne Smith taking third. Vonn is now just four wins away from matching Annemarie Moser-Proell for the all time women's record of wins. For Maze, second place with a mistake was a good day at the office and she is now closing in on the Overall. With Maria Hoefl-Riesch suffering another DNF, her second in two races, Maze is rapidly closing in on her first Overall Title as well as the first for her ski brand, Stoeckli.
After the race Vonn explained that she has “been trying to build my confidence and strength back up to where it was. St Anton was a good start, 6th and 4th place. I wanted today to be a podium day. I just skied the best that I could. I executed my plan and it worked out well.” Vonn's win was emphatic in that she put clear daylight between her and the rest of the field: Maze was nearly half a second behind Vonn. Head coach for the American team, Alex Hoedlmoser explained after the race that “now we see the old Vonn again!
After her spectacular fall in the final training run, Anna Fenninger recovered well to place sixth. Fenninger said after the race "My muscles are pretty hard. But while I was racing I noticed, thank God, nothing, while you are racing due to adrenaline you do not feel that way. Pain was a good distraction,"Â Fenninger had suffered whiplash, bruising and pain from the high-speed crash in training.
This was the fifth time that Lindsey Vonn has been on the podium this season and all five podiums have been wins! “It feels good to win again,” is how Lindsey summed it all up.
With regards to the race for the Overall, Maria Hoefl-Riesch missed a gate and remains in second place in the race for the Overall. Anna Fenninger is in third and Lindsey Vonn is in fourth. Vonn has a lead of almost 130 points in the race for the Downhill Globe. While Maze is grabbing the points in the Overall, it is the American Speed team that are eclipsing all the other nations. The Americans lead the Nations Cup standings in Downhill (the cumulatitive score of all racers from a country) by 441 points over the Swiss. The current standings are Vonn 1, Cook 2, McKennis 4, Smith 6, Mancuso 11, Ross 21. With only four racers to be selected for the World Championships next month, the likelihood of Julia Mancuso not going is high.
For Chemmy Alcott, it was not a great day at the office. After the race she commented "Sometimes when you are slow you have to have the balls to try something different! Aggressive snow + my aggressive skiing doesn't match, Today I tried to be more snake like, making the turns without edging too hard. But i didn't commit enough to my plan and made too many mistakes. SG tomorrow then a break for my leg to recover before world champs!" Chemmy finished 36th and currently sits in 38th in the season long standings with 7 points. To qualify for the World Cup Finals (the top 25 go to Lenzerheide) Chemmy needs to get her Atomics scoring big points: 24th equal is currently on 50 points.
Full Results