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Vonn edges closer to Downhill record

Having dominated both downhill races already at Lake Louise, Vonn headed into the Super G full of confidence as she set her sights on the hat-trick.

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Mirjam Puchner of Austria was fastest in the second training run Thursday for the women’s Lake Louise World Cup downhill.

Her winning time on Sunday was one minute 19.79 seconds. Another Austrian, Ramona Siebenhofer, was third. It also marked her 25th career super-G World Cup win, which is the most in history by anyone, male or female.

“I felt like I carried some good speed”, Shiffrin said. Vonn long ago surpassed the No. 2 man on the wins list, Hermann Maier (54). A year later, she fell on her left hip, but recovered to finish second. But she didn’t panic and stayed upright.

Shiffrin has three straight slalom World Cup titles but is bidding for her first overall World Cup season trophy.

“That was not planned”, Vonn said of her misstep. “I should probably not do that tomorrow”. I came in there with a really direct line – probably a little bit too direct, and I caught my edge amusing.

“I actually had one day of downhill coming into this, so I’m really excited about tomorrow”.

Sergei Belski, USA TODAY Sports Lindsey Vonn is shown during the women’s downhill race in the FIS alpine skiing World Cup at Lake Louise.

Huetter was excited after her third podium in as many days. Mancuso is out for the season after having hip surgery. I think she’s going to go for it, but I think since it’s her first speed event on the World Cup circuit, she’s going to feel it out, see how it goes. “I feel like there were some people that doubted whether I could win today and especially because Lara (Gut) had won the last couple races here in super-G”. It was very nice. Vonn ranked third in the overall standings after her pair of wins.

She’s learning the nuances of a slightly altered Lake Louise layout as officials added more rolling terrain.

“I knew my run wasn’t that bad”, explained the young Tippler.

That was a lesson learned.

The runner-up of Friday’s downhill in Lake Louise, Cornelia Hütter of Austria, had a great run also in Saturday’s downhill. Slalom phenom Mikaela Shiffrin made her World Cup debut in a speed discipline – speed races being downhill and super-G – and finished a highly respectable 15th. In 2009 he became world champion in giant slalom, 2010 Olympic champion in the same discipline.

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“I was slightly anxious for a second there that I was going to go out right before the finish, which I have done before”, Vonn said.

THE CANADIAN PRESS  Frank Gunn