ARE, Sweden — Skiing hard and doing what she loves, Lindsey Vonn was back to her old ways — winning races.
She captured a downhill Saturday, three weeks after a concussion curtailed her world championships. The win marked the 40th World Cup victory of her career, extending her American record for men and women.
Vonn finished in 1 minute, 40.93 seconds for her seventh victory this season. She clenched her fist and threw her head back as she crossed the finish line at the Swedish resort, then waved to the crowd.
“I did my best, and I think it was a good, aggressive run,” Vonn said.
She was followed by Tina Maze of Slovenia, who trailed by 0.13 seconds, and World Cup leader Maria Riesch of Germany. Stacey Cook of the United States was fifth and teammate Julia Mancuso finished 11th.
Vonn, the defending World Cup overall champion, crashed during training Feb. 2 in Austria and withdrew from the late stages of the world championships Feb. 14, still feeling the effects of a concussion. She finished sixth in the super-combined event Friday in her first race since the worlds.
On Saturday, Vonn was 0.04 behind Maze on her second time split, but accelerated strongly in the middle section and made a clean jump into the bottom slope.
“It’s still hard to believe I have 40 victories,” said Vonn, 26. “It’s a big number, so I’m incredibly happy. I feel lucky that I’m able to do what I love every day.”
Vonn leads by more than 100 points in the downhill standings, but trails Riesch by 176 in the overall.
At the worlds, Vonn finished seventh in super-G, pulled out after the downhill portion of the super-combi and took silver in the downhill.
Italian wins super-combined
BANSKO, Bulgaria — Christof Innerhofer of Italy skied a strong super-G to win the World Cup super-combined, edging Felix Neureuther of Germany by 0.01 seconds.
Giant slalom world champion Ted Ligety of the United States was fourth, matching his career best in the super-combined.
“I didn’t feel like I had the greatest slalom in the world, but my super-G run was pretty good,” he said.
Innerhofer, who won the super-G world title two weeks ago, finished 11th in the slalom earlier Saturday, but rallied to win in 2 minutes, 23.87 seconds.
