American speed queen Lindsey Vonn equalled the number of women's World Cup downhill victories with an impressive win over two testing legs at Zauchensee on Saturday. It was her 72nd win on the World Cup circuit and a record-equalling 36th in the downhill, matching the onlooking Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proell, who previously held the record of overall wins (62). "Another race, another record! Couldn't be happier! I'm honored that the legendary AM. Proell was there today!" Vonn tweeted.
Vonn produced a near-faultless first run, timing 1min 4.94sec to finish 0.91sec ahead of Canadian Larisa Yurkiw. The 31-year-old American veteran, Olympic downhill gold medallist in 2010 and world champion in 2009, backed that up with the fastest time down the second run (1:04.94) for a combined winning time of 2:11.17.
"I like the two-run downhill - it's nice to do something different," said Vonn, who also raced the last two-run downhill in 2002 in Are, Sweden, when she was 17 years old. "I think the classic format is the best, but it's nice to do something different. It's nice to challenge yourself and there's definitely a lot more pressure when you're leading the first run."
Yurkiw finished second at 1sec with Austrian Cornelia Huetter (+1.66) rounding out the podium in overcast conditions and on a quickly rutted piste that caused all manner of problems for the racers. Vonn's Swiss arch-rival Lara Gut failed to finish the first run while Liechtenstein's Tina Weirather skied out of the second. "I definitely didn't expect such a big advantage going into the second run," said Vonn.
"I skied a little more conservatively in the second run. It was bumpy and a lot of girls were having trouble." The American's victory saw her move to within 58 points of Gut (658pts) in the overall standings. Up next, Vonn goes for World Cup win number 73 as she chases Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup victories in Sunday's super-G.
Comments
Comments are closed.