CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Dominique Gisin of Switzerland edged Lindsey Vonn to win the downhill on Saturday.
Gisin finished in 1 minute, 16.98 seconds on the shortened Olympia delle Tofane course. Vonn, the reigning overall champion, finished 0.15 of a second behind. Anja Paerson was third, 0.17 back.
Gisin tied Paerson for her first World Cup victory last weekend in Zauchensee, Austria.
Paerson injured her left knee while landing a jump, a little more than a week before she is scheduled to defend three titles at the World Championships.
Vonn made a few slight errors in her run but retained her lead in the overall standings with 856 points. Maria Riesch is next with 810 and Paerson is third with 762.
“I didn’t exactly ski the way I wanted to. I made mistakes on the top and the bottom. I wasn’t clean and it was too many mistakes to win,” said Vonn, who wore a specially made red, white and blue racing suit as part of her rotating downhill wardrobe.
“I think if I had made only one mistake instead of two I could have won.”
Vonn still holds a 240-226 lead over Gisin in the downhill ranks. This season marks the first in six years that the 23-year-old Gisin has not been injured.
Tina Maze of Slovenia finished fourth in the race and Riesch was fifth.
Defago wins men’s Cup downhill.
Didier Defago of Switzerland won a World Cup downhill race for his second victory in eight days, while Bode Miller finished tied for fourth in Kitzbuehel, Austria.
Defago charged down the famed Streif course in 1 minute, 56.09 seconds to beat Michael Walchhofer of Austria by 0.17 of a second. He also won a World Cup downhill last Saturday.
Klaus Kroell of Austria, who won Friday’s super-G despite a broken right hand, was third. Miller shared fourth place with Didier Cuche of Switzerland.
The race was interrupted for about 20 minutes after TJ Lanning of the United States crashed into the safety nets. He injured his right knee and was taken to a hospital by helicopter as a precaution, said U.S. team spokesman Doug Haney.
Lanning, the third racer on the course, lost balance on a bumpy curve.
Miller had no obvious mistakes but still lost half a second to Defago in the first half of his run before charging for a clean finish.
The reigning overall champion, Miller has yet to win a Cup race this season. He’s in a commanding position to win the super-combined title, which consists of the downhill and today’s slalom.
Miller, who won the super- combi event last year, leads Raich by 0.62 seconds heading into the slalom.
Austrian Benjamin Raich, the World Cup overall leader, shared 12th with Liechtenstein’s Marco Buechel to stay atop the standings with 660 points.
The Associated Press
