Aspen: Vonn wins final training run; Cook sixth

It's a pleasure to hear a veteran downhiller talk about dialing in a course. Lindsey Vonn is pretty much a pleasure to talk to anyway, but after winning the second, and final training run for the Aspen downhill scheduled for Friday (Dec. 7) she was particularly revealing.
    "I pretty much stood up the whole bottom of the course and I know I can ski that a lot better tomorrow. I skied it pretty conservatively because of my almost-crash yesterday, so there's a good 20, or 30 percent left to go," the red bib wearer said.
    So Vonn, already leading the World Cup's downhill standings, won the final training run at 80 percent.
ASPEN, Colo. — It's a pleasure to hear a veteran downhiller talk about dialing in a course. Lindsey Vonn is pretty much a pleasure to talk to anyway, but after winning the second, and final training run for the Aspen downhill scheduled for Friday (Dec. 7) she was particularly revealing.
    "I pretty much stood up the whole bottom of the course and I know I can ski that a lot better tomorrow. I skied it pretty conservatively because of my almost-crash yesterday, so there's a good 20, or 30 percent left to go," the red bib wearer said.
    So Vonn, already leading the World Cup's downhill standings, won the final training run at 80 percent.
    Austrian Elisabeth Goergl came close, 0.09 of a second back. And Martina Schild, the winner of the super G at Lake Louise was third, four tenths back. Renate Goetschl was more than half a second off the pace in fourth.
    For Vonn the training run was all about housecleaning. In Wednesday night's video sessions seeing areas that needed work was pretty easy.
    "There were a couple (turns) where I could have done better yesterday and I can be more patient starting my turns and trying to be a little bit cleaner with my initiation," she said. "Sometimes I was a little unsure and sliding the top of my turns, so I looked at that and really focused during inspection.  I was arcing almost all the hard turns I definitely cleaned it up from yesterday."
    Now it's just a matter of putting it together when it counts.
    Which will also be the focus of Stacey Cook who put in a fabulous run to finish sixth. She said she carried "race realistic" speed on the top of the course and that her skis were running well. But there was still a learning curve going on.
    "There is a very small place to initiate turns," Cook said, "and it is super crucial to hit it. We had a really good video session last night with the coaches and I think I figured out the course a little better. But I've learned not to look at training times, because up at Lake Louise I was top 10 every day so (sixth in training) is doesn't mean anything until tomorrow, but it gives me confidence."

OFFICIAL RESULTS – SECOND TRAINING