Lindsey Vonn celebrated another successful weekend in Garmisch-Partenkirchen where she won her fifth downhill this season and reached another podium in Super-G finishing 3rd in the competition captured by Switzerland’s Lara Gut.
These strong performances allowed her to reinforce her lead in the overall World Cup standings over the weekend and get closer to the legendary mark of 86 victories in World Cup races set by Sweden’s skiing legend Ingemar Stenmark in the 1970s and 1980s.
The champion from Vail, who also had the privilege to spend some nice moments within the Red Bull Motorhome located that weekend in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, owns now a total of 76 wins in all five alpine disciplines and has a good chance to increase her mark with seven speed races left in the coming weeks of competition.
Lindsey Vonn already scored more than one thousand points so far this winter and leads the overall standings by 87 points over Lara Gut with five more weekends of racing scheduled this season prior to the Finals at St. Moritz, in Switzerland.
The American strongly enjoys staying in the Bavarian town where she had already won several races in past years, including a slalom and a few Super-Gs. She often celebrated Christmas in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in past years with her friend Maria Hoefl-Riesch when the German star was still competing.
“It’s always fun here, my dad was here too, I also spent some time with Maria and visited the US Army base, I really feel comfortable here,” she told the press at the arrival. I also know the slope pretty well now and have a good feeling for what I need to do to be fast on it.”
In the downhill race, Lindsey crushed the rest of the field winning it by the astonishing margin of 1,51 seconds – impressing once more her main rivals. “We are all fighting hard to make it safe to the finish line, but she seems so smooth and controlled on her way down, how is she doing it?” said Austria’s expert Elisabeth Goergl, a two-time world champion on that same slope five years ago.
Interestingly enough, Vonn explained that in fact she didn’t take too many risks to dominate her competitors, using her brain as much as her legs to get as safely as possible over the rough course.
“It was definitely a lot different today than it was in the training run, pretty much a totally different course. It was definitely bumpy … and very flat light in some sections. I was able to execute it well in the right places, and carry my speed through the whole course,” she said after the race.
“I was watching all the racers from the start, and I could see that there were some problems. There were some bumps, and the problem is that the bumps were right in the compressions, and also where there were shadows, so you couldn’t really see anything.”
That fifth downhill win this season allows Lindsey Vonn to lead the specialty standings by 172 points over Canada’s Larisa Yurkiw with only three races left on the program. Her chances to clinch another crystal globe in the discipline look pretty solid for the moment.
“It was a great day,” Lindsey also said. “Every day is a new chance to break my own record, which is kind of weird to say, but it still makes it exciting. Every win for me is more special than the last. And my dad is here, it’s really special,” she added.
The scene seems set for another outstanding performance the next day in the fourth Super-G race of the season as Lindsey was unbeaten in that specialty for a long time. Yet the warm weather and the course conditions didn’t allow her to fully achieve her potential – she didn’t want to take too many risks on the sometimes softer snow that was covering the course on Sunday. She came in 3rd, 23/100 of a second behind Lara Gut.
“I was sort of expecting that the green light may now show up at the finish line after my run, I felt that I was not moving at my best yet 3rd place is fine too. You can always hope for a little bit more, but like I said, I’m still really happy and my dad is still proud of me and my dog still loves me. So all-in-all, I think I’m doing pretty good,” Vonn commented.
In fact Lindsey’s puppy Lucy was also one of the stars of the day as it moved towards her after the awards ceremony allowing Lindsey to cuddle her in front of her fans as she did the previous evening at the bib draw.
“It’s a good day at the office,” Vonn also commented afterwards. “The snow was soft today — like spring. I didn’t risk everything today — I probably could have. But I’m older and wiser now and to get to the finish healthy and in third is still a pretty darn good day. The Broncos game is tonight and if they win, it’ll make up for my third place.”
“It’s a very good weekend, I can’t win ’em all,” she summarized.” I tried my best, to ski my best ever day and I think I’ve done a pretty good job so far this season. Today was just not one of those days where I felt like putting it all on the line. I’ve had a great season so far and I want to keep it going. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Lindsey Vonn who had her share of bad crashes and major injuries in recent season aims now for some smoother weekends on courses which perfectly suit her style. Next weekend she will be fighting for more podium results and points at Crans-Montana, where a downhill, a combined event and a slalom are scheduled. She already won a downhill in the Swiss resort back in March 2008 – on her way to her maiden overall World Cup triumph.
