‘Snow Queen’ Vonn claims World Cup super-G victory

SCHLADMING, Austria - The Associated Press

Reuters photo

Lindsey Vonn won the World Cup super-G title yesterday after narrowly avoiding skiing out and finishing sixth in the final race of the season.

After a blistering run, Vonn was 1.22 second faster than leader Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany at the final intermediate time but went off-course and just made the next gate shortly before the finish section.
“I had a great run but was much too straight in that banana turn,” Vonn said. “Coaches had told me I could approach that turn straight, but at my speed it was just impossible ... It was a little bit of a miscommunication. The line we talked about was too direct.”

Vonn had to slow down to get back on the course and lost almost two seconds to trail Rebensburg by 0.57 at the finish. The American standout had already secured the discipline title before the start of her run.

It was Vonn’s 16th career crystal globe and the fourth in super-G. This season, she won four of seven races in the discipline. Vonn has two races left to earn 53 points and overtake Austrian great Hermann Maier’s record of 2,000 World Cup points in one single season.

Vonn is also closing in on the women’s best mark of 1,980 points held by Janica Kostelic of Croatia.
“A shame I didn’t manage to get there today,” said Vonn.

Vonn failed to finish her last three slaloms, while she had an outstanding GS season with her first two wins in the discipline.

“I am not sure to do the slalom and maybe prepare for the GS,” she said. “I might do the slalom to try to get points to put pressure off the GS. That decision I will make tomorrow. Let’s see how much energy I’ve left and go from there.”