Vail’s Lindsey Vonn missed half the World Cup season because of a she suffered in a preseason training crash at Copper Mountain, but she’s back to her winning ways now.
In only her second race back, Vonn won a downhill Saturday at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, finishing 0.15 of a second ahead of Switzerland’s Lara Gut. It was her 77th World Cup victory, nine behind Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86.
“It feels amazing,” Vonn told reporters in the finish area. “I got to the bottom and I cried. I worked really hard to come back. I feel like sometimes I come back so quickly, everyone forgets how much time and energy and blood, sweat and tears it takes to come back. I had to trust myself and my team and my (ski) technician. We all did our best and today was just amazing.”
Last week, in her first race since a knee injury ended her 2015-16 season last February, Vonn finished 13th in a downhill at Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Austria.
“Honestly I wasn’t sure after Zauchensee how long it would take me (to win again),” Vonn said. “I proved to myself today that all the work I put in is really coming through.”
By beating Gut, Vonn did a favor for teammate Mikaela Shiffrin, who is leading the World Cup overall standings. Gut is Shiffrin’s closest pursuer in the overall race. The difference between first and second in a World Cup race is 20 points, and those points might be crucial for Shiffrin if the overall race is tight at the end of the season. Shiffrin did not race Saturday.
World Cup overall standings (after 21 of 36 races)
Mikaela Shiffrin, EagleVail, 1,008 points
Lara Gut, Switzerland, 773
Ilka Stuhec, Slovenia, 616
Sofia Goggia, Italy, 605
Tessa Worley, France, 563
