WHISTLER, BRITISH COLUMBIA — Today’s women’s downhill training run was cancelled because of heavy fog and intermittent snow showers, a development which could buy downhill favorite Lindsey Vonn extra time to heal.
Training started 45 minutes late and only two racers left the starting gate. Stacey Cook of the U.S. Ski Team was No. 2, and she crashed coming off a jump. She was airlifted from the course with unspecified injuries and the training run was never resumed. Lucia Recchia of Italy, who was the only racer to ski into the finish area, complained of poor visibility during her run.
Vonn, who was to train with bib No. 15, got in a warm-up run after course inspection, which precedes training. Her husband, Thomas, was on the hill with her.
“I followed behind her, and I could see she was skiing OK,” said Thomas Vonn, a former U.S. Ski Team racer. “She could roll up (on edge) the way she wanted. And the warm-up course was pretty choppy, so it was a good test. That put a smile on my face right away. Then I saw her at the bottom, she was obviously in pain, but smiling through it, like, ‘OK, we can work with this.’ “
Thomas Vonn was even happier after the training run was officially cancelled.
“It’s another day of healing,” Thomas Vonn said. “Hopefully tomorrow she feels even better.”
Thomas Vonn said he wife was still feeling considerable pain from the shin injury she suffered Feb.2, “but she can deal with pain as long as it’s not debilitating pain.”
Lindsey Vonn was not immediately available after the training run was cancelled but earlier gave fans an update via Twitter: “So I took a bunch of pain killers and numbed my shin with some creams. Warm-up was still very painful but I think it was good enough to give it a shot in the training run. Wish me luck!”
Earlier in the day, U.S. Ski Team spokesman Doug Haney said Vonn was in “some pain,” because of the shin injury she suffered nine days ago, but was good to go.
“Her course inspection went very well,” Haney said an hour before the scheduled run, “and she’s headed up to do some warm-up.”
