American Lindsey Vonn was all smiles on Sunday after a second World Cup victory of the weekend, winning the super-G with a wide time margin over her rival Lara Gut.
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She now shares the record for total wins in the discipline with renowned Austrian skier Annemarie Moser-Proell.
In 2012, Vonn won the latest of her four overall titles and came just 20 points short of breaking the then record for the highest World Cup points total in a single season.
The victory ensures Vonn leads the downhill World Cup standings by 50 points and brings her to within 58 points of overall leader, Laura Gut, of Switzerland.
“I definitely didn’t expect such a big advantage going into the second run”, said Vonn. “Hopefully I can just continue on in this direction and keep winning”.
Saturday’s second run produced a similar outcome as Vonn was again the quickest racer on the course, finishing in a slightly slower time than earlier in the day but more than enough to secure victory. With two runs, I figured if I was behind in the first run, I can maybe ski a little bit more aggressively in the second.
Austrian Cornelia Huetter finished third fully 1.66 seconds behind the American. They had to lower the start because of insufficient snow quality in the upper section.
“It was hard to stay relaxed”, Vonn said about her final run. It was tough with lots of bumps. “I skied a little bit conservatively in the middle, I could have skied a little bit more clean”.
Vonn trailed Gut by 158 points coming into this weekend’s races but has reduced her deficit to 38.
In the women’s cross-country Tour de Ski in Cavalese, Italy, Therese Johaug erased a deficit of almost 40 seconds entering the final stage to win her second title. The technical team will be back in action under the lights on Tuesday evening with the night slalom in Flachau, Austria, on January 12 – the first run starting at 5:45 p.m. CET time.
Yurkiw called racing against Vonn “a constant challenge”.
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The first run was interrupted for 15 minutes when Lotte Smiseth Sejersted crashed and had to be airlifted off the course with suspected knee injuries.
