Vonn gets final confidence boost heading into World Champs

By Published On: January 25th, 2015Comments Off on Vonn gets final confidence boost heading into World Champs

A day after a big mistake led to a disappointing 23rd-place finish in the downhill, Lindsey Vonn came out firing on the technically and tactically challenging St. Moritz super G to claim her fifth victory of the season.

The new track, which was seen by the women for the first time over the course of the week, provided plenty of excitement. Big turns and blind rolls presented a challenge to the athletes and several of the favorites heading into the day fell victim to the course. World Cup overall leader Tina Maze, who ran right before Vonn, held the lead at each interval before missing the tricky second-to-last gate. Elisabeth Goergl and Tina Weirather ran into the same problem and yesterday’s winner, Lara Gut, fell on her side midway down and did not finish. All in all, 25 racers either failed to finish the course or missed a gate.

“It was definitely a difficult course today. There was a lot of terrain and a lot of tricky parts, but I had a good inspection and thankfully I didn’t make any mistakes like I did yesterday, so it was a good day,” said Vonn. “That’s the nice thing about being older. I’ve seen course sets like there was today and it’s definitely tricky and a lot of people go out there. So I just try to give it a little bit more room to make sure I was through the finish. And it may not have been the fastest way down but I was in the finish and that was the most important part about today.”

It was clear in Vonn’s skiing that she trusted her inspection and attacked into each blind section, holding nothing back. Much like Gut did yesterday on the way to her commanding win, Vonn skied an aggressive, clean and dynamic run, gaining speed on every turn to take the lead from Sweden’s Kajsa Kling, who held off several racers before ultimately finishing fourth on the day. Anna Fenninger put in a good challenge, but was unable to overtake Vonn and finished 0.24 seconds back in second. Teammate Nicole Hosp rounded out the podium 1.10 seconds behind.

“Yeah I think that’s the name of the game in super G, having confidence, you know you have to have a good inspection and you have to trust yourself and really attack no matter what,” said Vonn. “All the girls are skiing really well and I had a pretty good run, but Anna was still pretty close to me. No race is a given, you still have to work hard for it, Today I skied well and I’m very happy to be on top of the podium.”

Vonn’s growing confidence at each race has been demonstrated by her increasing willingness to attack and the level of risk she is taking on each course. She has held nothing back on her way to back-to-back super G victories, and today she and Fenninger were in a league of their own.

Vonn acknowledged earlier in the week that the super G would be a challenge considering the new track and the number of blind rolls and jumps. That seemed like an afterthought once she was on course as her precise, on-edge skiing led her to the 22nd super G win of her career and 64th overall giving her another boost heading into the Vail-Beaver Creek World Championships which begin Feb. 3.

“I have a lot of confidence now after having a few days of training in Beaver Creek, and it’s a very difficult hill and one that requires a lot of tactics,” Vonn commented. “I am confident and I’m going to try and go in there and just ski my best like I always have and hopefully it works out.”

Fenninger found herself on the second step of the podium yet again, with her third straight second-place finish. Running four spots after Vonn, Fenninger briefly held the lead at interval one but lost some time in the technical turns. She was able to clean up her skiing and made up a few tenths from the mid-section to the finish to tighten the race.

“In the first two sections my rhythm wasn’t that good but I skied well in the lower part,” said Fenninger. “To be able to beat Lindsey, your run has to be perfect from top to bottom. Finishing second again is a good result. It’s not easy to be consistent at this level. Hopefully next time I can take a step forward and go for the win, especially with the World Championships coming up.”

Hosp was unable to keep up with the pace of Vonn and Fenninger at just over a second behind, but she still finished third for the second podium of her season after a surprising win in the Aspen slalom. She was extremely pleased with her first super G podium of the year and was one of five Austrians in the top 10.

“My line wasn’t that good in some sections where I was a bit too round,” Hosp said. “But overall it’s a great performance for me, which makes me very happy.”

The remaining Americans didn’t fare as well as Vonn. Laurenne Ross was in the midst of a strong run but ran into trouble in the middle section and lost significant time before ultimately missing the second-to-last gate. Julia Mancuso and Stacey Cook both skied solid runs, but looked to have trouble finding confidence with the rhythm and rolls of the course and finished 16th and 19th, respectively. Alice Mckennis started bib 55 and finished 26th to find herself in the points for the first time in super G since 2010.

“I think I have a few things to figure out, things aren’t going perfect at the moment, but I’m really close to having a breakthrough and I’m going to work hard and hopefully I’ll be there fighting for the medals in Beaver Creek,” said Mancuso.

Canadian youngster Valerie Grenier, an 18-year-old in only her third World Cup, moved from bib 50 to finish an impressive 13th. Marie-Michele Gagnon was the only other Canadian in the points in 17th.

The women have just over a week off before the World Championships begin with the super G on Feb. 3.

See more photos from this race here

 

The Scoop

By Hank McKee

1 Vonn, Head/Head/Head

2 Fenninger, Head/Head/Head

3 Hosp, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer

4 Kling, Head/Head/Head

5 Huetter, Volkl/Tecnica/Marker

6 Schmidhofer, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer

7 Mowinckel, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol

8 Sterz, Volkl/Tecnica/Marker

8 Rebensburg, Stoeckli/Lange/Atomic

10 Marsaglia, Volkl/Marker

Women’s World Cup super G, St Moritz, Switzerland, Jan. 25, 2015:

  • It is the 20th of 34 races on the women’s schedule … the fifth of seven scheduled super G’s and the fourth to be held. … It is the 46th World Cup race hosted by St. Moritz, the 12th super G. … Tina Weirather won the last SG held at the site in 2013.
  • It is the record-extending 64th World Cup win for Lindsey Vonn … her 22nd in super G moving her closer to the all-time SG win mark held by Hermann Maier (24). … It is the 281st U.S. win. … It is her fifth win of the season and the 11th U.S. win of the season. … It is her second super G win of the season. … The winning margin is .24 of a second. … Top two are within the same second … top nine within two seconds. … It is the seventh U.S. win at St Moritz … five from Vonn and 16th in super G, one each from Ted Ligety and Tyler Palmer.
  • It is the 35th career World Cup podium placing for Anna Fenninger … her 16th in super G. … It is her seventh podium of the season, sixth of them second-place finishes.
  • It is the 56th career World Cup podium placing for Nicole Hosp … her ninth in super G. … It is her second podium of the season, the previous the win in the Aspen slalom Nov. 30.
  • Valerie Grenier skied from bib 50 to gain her first career World Cup points. … It is the best SG finish of the season for a Canadian woman.
  • It is the fifth best of six World Cup super G finishes at St. Moritz for Julia Mancuso. … It is the fourth best of 10 career World Cup super G results for Marie-Michele Gagnon. … It is the tenth best of 32 career World Cup super G results for Stacey Cook. … She matches her best super G result of the season. … It is Alice McKennis’ third career super G scoring finish … her first of the season.
  • Tina Maze (disqualified in race) holds the lead of the women’s World Cup overall standings 985-801 over Fenninger. … Vonn holds third with 646points. … Mikaela Shiffrin (did not race) is ranked fourth overall with 605pts. … Larisa Yurkiw (DNF in race) is the top Canadian overall in 28th place with 189pts.
  • Vonn leads the super G standings 280-272 for Fenninger. … Lara Gut (DNF in race) is third in super G standings with 190pts. … Julia Mancuso (16th in race) is eighth in super G with 117pts.
  • Austria leads the women’s Nations Cup standings 3621-2105 over the U.S. … Sweden is third with 1594pts. … Canada is ninth with 528pts.

 

Results

 1  17  537544 VONN Lindsey 1984 USA  1:23.55  0.00
 2  21  55947 FENNINGER Anna 1989 AUT  1:23.79  +0.24  3.10
 3  18  55690 HOSP Nicole 1983 AUT  1:24.65  +1.10  14.22
 4  8  505886 KLING Kajsa 1988 SWE  1:25.03  +1.48  19.13
 5  9  56128 HUETTER Cornelia 1992 AUT  1:25.10  +1.55  20.04
 6  15  55970 SCHMIDHOFER Nicole 1989 AUT  1:25.35  +1.80  23.27
 7  24  425929 MOWINCKEL Ragnhild 1992 NOR  1:25.40  +1.85  23.91
 8  11  55766 STERZ Regina 1985 AUT  1:25.54  +1.99  25.72
 8  10  205218 REBENSBURG Viktoria 1989 GER  1:25.54  +1.99  25.72
 10  7  297702 MARSAGLIA Francesca 1990 ITA  1:25.55  +2.00  25.85
 11  59  296472 FANCHINI Elena 1985 ITA  1:25.61  +2.06  26.63
 12  2  196460 JAY MARCHAND-ARVIER Marie 1985 FRA  1:25.62  +2.07  26.76
 13  50  107613 GRENIER Valerie 1996 CAN  1:25.64  +2.09  27.02
 14  25  297910 CURTONI Elena 1991 ITA  1:25.66  +2.11  27.27
 15  26  56125 PUCHNER Mirjam 1992 AUT  1:25.76  +2.21  28.57
 16  13  537545 MANCUSO Julia 1984 USA  1:25.78  +2.23  28.83
 17  27  105269 GAGNON Marie-Michele 1989 CAN  1:25.89  +2.34  30.25
 18  1  206367 HRONEK Veronique 1991 GER  1:26.20  +2.65  34.25
 19  4  537582 COOK Stacey 1984 USA  1:26.33  +2.78  35.94
 20  44  426043 TVIBERG Maria Therese 1994 NOR  1:26.43  +2.88  37.23
 21  29  516219 NUFER Priska 1992 SUI  1:26.44  +2.89  37.36
 22  56  55750 FISCHBACHER Andrea 1985 AUT  1:26.49  +2.94  38.00
 23  36  196968 BAILET Margot 1990 FRA  1:26.64  +3.09  39.94
 24  46  296427 SCHNARF Johanna 1984 ITA  1:26.67  +3.12  40.33
 25  40  155563 KRIZOVA Klara 1989 CZE  1:26.85  +3.30  42.66
 26  55  538685 MCKENNIS Alice 1989 USA  1:26.88  +3.33  43.04
 26  30  197295 PIOT Jennifer 1992 FRA  1:26.88  +3.33  43.04
 28  31  516319 SUTER Corinne 1994 SUI  1:26.95  +3.40  43.95
 29  53  426100 HOLTMANN Mina Fuerst 1995 NOR  1:26.98  +3.43  44.34
 30  6  196928 WORLEY Tessa 1989 FRA  1:27.07  +3.52  45.50
 31  62  375018 COLETTI Alexandra 1983 MON  1:27.34  +3.79  48.99
 32  37  56088 TIPPLER Tamara 1991 AUT  1:27.37  +3.82  49.38
 33  60  565333 BRODNIK Vanja 1989 SLO  1:27.67  +4.12  53.26
 34  58  435245 CHRAPEK Karolina 1990 POL  1:27.97  +4.42  57.13
 35  54  299466 DELAGO Nicole 1996 ITA  1:28.01  +4.46  57.65
Disqualified 1st run
 52  197319 BAUD Adeline 1992 FRA
 49  565401 BUCIK Ana 1993 SLO
 48  515997 FEIERABEND Denise 1989 SUI
 43  196812 PELLISSIER Marion 1988 FRA
 42  206460 WENIG Michaela 1992 GER
 38  297195 HOFER Anna 1988 ITA
 32  197497 MIRADOLI Romane 1994 FRA
 23  495318 RUIZ CASTILLO Carolina 1981 SPA
 19  55576 GOERGL Elisabeth 1981 AUT
 16  565243 MAZE Tina 1983 SLO
 14  296431 STUFFER Verena 1984 ITA
 12  296729 FANCHINI Nadia 1986 ITA
 3  538573 ROSS Laurenne 1988 USA
Did not start 1st run
 51  206536 WALLNER Marina 1994 GER
 41  539536 WILES Jacqueline 1992 USA
Did not finish 1st run
 61  45331 SMALL Greta 1995 AUS
 57  485632 BEDAREVA Maria 1992 RUS
 47  516248 FLURY Jasmine 1993 SUI
 45  245066 MIKLOS Edit 1988 HUN
 39  539685 RYAN Katie 1993 USA
 35  515806 JNGLIN-KAMER Nadja 1986 SUI
 34  106849 YURKIW Larisa 1988 CAN
 33  56087 SIEBENHOFER Ramona 1991 AUT
 28  515766 SUTER Fabienne 1985 SUI
 22  355050 WEIRATHER Tina 1989 LIE
 20  516138 GUT Lara 1991 SUI
 5  565360 STUHEC Ilka 1990 SLO

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About the Author: Jessica Kelley

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Ski Team, Kelley collected three NorAm titles, won GS silver at the 2002 World Junior Championships, and was a member of the 2007 World Championships team during her professional career. She resides in Park City, Utah, with her husband, Adam Cole.