Ski Racing - January 7, 2010

me. It would be great to keep up with her to the end of the season until the World Cup Finals in Garmisch.” The list of DNFs in the downhill run was sizable and included Julia Mancuso and Keely Kelleher. Mancuso was eating up the course in her first two intervals, then, like several other racers, missed a gate after flying off a jump about two-thirds down the course.

When asked to predict how things would go in the following day’s downhill race, both Riesch and Goergl admitted that Vonn was going to be hard to beat.

“Lindsey is skiing really well right now in downhill,” Goergl said. “We try our best to get closer.” “She has showed her class today, how fast she can ski in downhill,” Riesch said. “If she does the same tomorrow I think no one will have a chance against her. But every day is a new race. For everybody, the timing is starting at zero seconds. We will try hard. I think it will be a tough one.”

Swiss skiers Nadia Styger (left) and Fraenzi Aufdenblatten (center) dominate the super G podium with Lindsey Vonn in third.

Sadly, nobody got to see exactly what Vonn — or anybody else — was prepared to put on the line in the downhill because after two delayed starts and an attempt to move the course down to the super G course, wind, fog and poor visibility claimed the day. At press time, a rescheduled race had not yet been announced.

The Swiss women’s speed team showed its male counterparts that they know how to raise their flag, too, when it came to the Val d’Isere super G. Swiss skier Fraenzi Aufdenblatten was the big winner with teammate and speed veteran Nadia Styger 0.23 seconds behind her. Vonn — who might not outright win every speed race but certainly comes close every time these days — was just 0.26 back.

It was the first World Cup victory in 28-year-old Aufdenblatten’s long and
somewhat inconsistent career, and her first podium since January 2006 (and
one of just three podiums in her entire Cup history, which begin in 2000). It
was also just the fifth Cup podium for 31-year-old Styger, whose other four
were all victories that came in super G in 2004, 2005 and 2006 and in down-
hill (Lake Louise) last year. The two stood in the leaders’ box for nearly the
entire race, wearing huge grins, giggling and nudging each other.
Vonn wasn’t entirely happy with her run, saying she could have been more
aggressive. “I was a little bit disappointed with my run,” she said. “I thought I
didn’t execute very well in the top part of the course. I missed the timing on
one gate and I feel like I lost the rhythm for the rest of the top. It was a tricky
course today. It would be straight for a few gates, then really turny. I feel like
I could just never get into the rhythm. I wasn’t as aggressive as I should have
been, but I picked it up on the bottom and all in all I’m happy with the day. It
was a solid result and a good end to a good weekend.”
The third place allowed Vonn to pass up Maria Riesch, who finished 21st
in the super G, in the overall standings; Vonn now had 581 points to Riesch’s
531.