Lindsey Vonn feels at home on the Olympic course at Lake Louise where celebrated a total of 14 victories in the last decade – yet she also loves racing at Cortina d’Ampezzo where she enjoyed her maiden World Cup podium in January 2004! Yet she had to wait four more years afterwards to finally prevail in the Italian ‘Classic’ – winning a total of six races there from 2008 to 2012. This year, the defending Overall World Cup champion is looking forward with great pleasure for the competitions on the superb ‘Olimpia-Tofana’ run dominated by spectacular summits from the Dolomites.
“The resort is beautiful and I like the course there a lot, in one of the very steep part we are reaching speeds over 140 km/h, it really exciting for the speed skiers,” she explained last week-end at St. Anton where she achieved a promising comeback after her three-week-long break at home, finishing 6th in downhill and 4th in Super-G, only a mere 1/100 from the podium.
“I just hope to weather conditions will be fine there, I heard it’ll be going to snow this week. I rather race on fast and challenging courses,” the skier from Vail added. “I really enjoyed coming back on the World Cup tour, I have been missing the adrenaline a lot, it’s just so much fun skiing as fast as possible on a nice race course,” Lindsey also said.
“I have not been home for Christmas in the last eleven years, so I really appreciated this time to be with my family and friends in Colorado. I was able to recover most of my energy and my form there. I didn’t ski as well as I wanted here in St. Anton, yet I know where I made those mistakes and what I need to improve. I was disappointed to lose the podium in Super-G for a single one hundredth of a second, yet I feel it’s coming back.”
Last month, Lindsey achieved an amazing comeback at Lake Louise following her health problems early November. She celebrated her second ‘Hat-Trick’ in the Canadian event and went on winning the Super-G at St. Moritz but obviously she may need more time this time to return at the top after that second pause as her toughest rivals kept their racing rhythm in the meantime.
“It’s a matter to put all the pieces together again and recover my racing mode,” she also told the press. “The most important for me is that I feel well and that I’m really happy to be back. I’m looking again to ski very fast in the coming weeks.”
After Tina Maze’s maiden victory in Super-G, it has become complicated for Lindsey to aim for a fifth Overall World Cup title this year with only eight speed events and one combined left towards seven technical races. “Tina has been on a roll this season with top results in all disciplines,” Lindsey said at St. Anton. She is clearly running away with the Overall and it’s cool to watch. It’s great for the sport and I’m happy for her.”
Yet the double World Champion from Val d’Isère 2009 certainly aims for more highlights this season at the up-coming medal events at Schladming where she will be aiming for podium finishes in the speed events and in combined. She is also ‘only’ five wins away from Austria’s skiing legend Annemarie Moser-Proell amazing record of 62 career victories on the World Cup tour.
