Bend zee knees, American ski slope idol Lindsey Vonn had a simply "Vonn-der-ful" weekend at Lake Louise Friday through Sunday, Dec. 2-4.
Vonn, the reigning Olympic downhill queen, swept all three Audi World Cup speed races at the Canadian resort and left no doubt to her ownership of the Lake Louise downhill.
She increased her 12-year career total to 45 World Cup victories and dispelled any notions that her recent split with Thomas Vonn after four years of marriage would affect her competitive racing edge.
"It's definitely a lot more than I expected considering everything that's going on," said Vonn to the Washington Post newspaper. "I didn't come into this expecting this....It really couldn't have gone any better."
Less than two weeks ago, Thomas Vonn announced that he had filed for divorce from Vonn, the 27-year-old native of Burnsville, Minn. who is fast becoming the greatest American alpine ski racer of all time. At the same time, Lindsey (Kildow) Vonn said she would keep her married name.
If her emotions were affected, it didn't show at Lake Louise—where she won the ninth, 10th and 11th races of her career. And she didn't narrowly win Friday and Saturday's downhills. She blew everybody away.
After her six-year downhill winning string at Lake Louise was snapped a year ago, Vonn came storming back Friday to win by 1.95 seconds over late-starting Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein. It was the largest margin of victory in Vonn's career, something of an eternity in the downhill event.
"I mean, 2 seconds, that's crazy," said third-place Dominque Gisin of Switzerland. "We will try to be a little bit closer to Lindsey tomorrow. That's probably the only thing you can hope for."
Vonn smoked the hopes of the rest of the field Saturday. Her decisive 1.68-second victory was the second largest margin of victory in her career following the blistering 1.95-second gap she put on the field Friday.
She said, "I've always had a good connection here with the snow and the way the mountain runs. I just love racing in Lake Louise. I come here knowing that I've won in the past and it gives me a lot of confidence. It's just a great way to start the speed season.
"I feel that if I start well here then it will carry through the season. Last year I didn't have as good of a start so this year, I just wanted to come out strong. Having back-to-back wins is certainly a good sign."
If that weren't enough, Vonn won the season's first super giant slalom Sunday for her 45th World Cup win (23 DH, 15 SG, 1 GS, 2 SL, 4 combined).
Vonn (422 points) built her World Cup overall lead to 136 points over second-place Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany (286). Last year's queen Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany is far back, fifth at 181. She nipped Vonn for the championship by just three points last March.
Commenting on Vonn's status among the women early in the current season, overall queen Hoefl-Riesch said afterwards, "In another world. There's definitely nobody that can keep up with her at the moment in the downhills."
The only other women's sweep at Lake Louise was German Katja Seizinger in 1997. And it was the second three day sweep of Vonn's career. She won a pair of downhills and SG in Haus im Ennstal, Austria in Jan. 2010.
Sweep was a big word for the Americans last weekend.
Bode Miller's downhill victory at Beaver Creek, Colo. Friday was the first time in seven years that the U.S. Ski Team doubled up with two downhill wins in one day. It happened last Dec. 3, 2004 when Miller won in Colorado and then-Lindsey Kildow won her first World Cup in Lake Louise.
Vonn said, "With Bode winning in Beaver Creek, it was a big day for the U.S. Ski Team."
Vonn (84 career podiums) has won plenty more World Cups since her first of 11 wins on the Canadian course seven years ago.
In fact, Vonn is just one victory behind Austria's Renate Goetschl (46 from 1993-2009) for third on the all-time World Cup women's winning list since the tour began in 1966. Leading the way are Austria's Annemarie Moser-Proell (62 from 1969-80) and Switzerland's Vreni Schneider (55). All-time leader is Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark (86 from 1973-89, 46 giant slalom, 40 slalom).
In number of overall World Cup titles, Vonn with three for her career is tied with Austria's Petra Kronberger, Schneider of Switzerland and Janica Kostelic of Croatia. If Vonn keeps her current World Cup overall lead this winter, she will trail only the six World Cup titles of Moser-Proell.
She has now won 11 races in Lake Louise with 19 podiums in only 30 starts at the Canadian resort. Vonn has now won four of the five World Cup races she has entered this season. There have been six women's races.
Vonn has a good chance to pick up another win when the World Cup women's tour visits Vonn's home base of Beaver Creek/Vail today for a women's super giant slalom. Beaver Creek is the replacement site of the lost-to-weather Val d'Isere, France events,
World Cup men raced giant slalom Tuesday. The women tackle super giant slalom today, Wednesday and the men finish with slalom Thursday. Next races in Europe are set for Dec. 16-17 in Italy and France.
Vonn said, "I'm so excited to finally be able to race in my hometown. It's going to be awesome. We're only going to have that one inspection for the super G, so I need to be really focused to be ready for the race on Wednesday."
After 12 races (6 men's, 6 women's) on the 86-competition schedule of the 2011-12 Audi FIS World Cup, here are the top standings and top Americans:
Men: 1—Aksel Lund Svindal (Nor.) 294 points. 2—Didier Cuche (Switz.) 260. 3—Beat Feux (Switz.) 246. 4—Bode Miller (USA) 197. 5—Ted Ligety (USA) 189. Miller is tied with Cuche for second in DH standings with 129 points apiece, Feux leading the way with 160. Ligety is the GS leader with 180 points, 40 points ahead of Marcel Hirscher of Austria.
Women: 1—Lindsey Vonn (USA) 422 points. 2—Viktoria Rebensburg (Germ.) 286. 3—Elisabeth Goergl (Aust.) 243. 5—Maria Hoefl-Riesch (Germ.) 181. 6—Julia Mancuso (USA) 169. With 200 points, Vonn tops the DH standings by 94 points. She also leads SG, and is third in GS with 122.
Miller posts 33rd World Cup win
Bode Miller, 34, of Franconia, N.H. took maximum risk, but skied a flawless run to take his 33rd career Audi FIS Alpine World Cup win on the Birds of Prey downhill in Beaver Creek by a slim .04 margin over Swiss Beat Feuz on Friday.
It was an historic third win for Miller in the Birds of Prey downhill and his first at Beaver Creek since 2006 when he and teammate Daron Rahlves (Sugar Bowl, CA) went 1-2. Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) was the next American in 22nd as four Americans finished in the top-30 points.
Miller's first World Cup win since the Wengen, Switz. super combined in Jan. 2010 was also his first World Cup downhill victory since Kvitfjell in March 2008.
He said, "I love to ski the way I did today. When I came across the finish line I was 100% satisfied, and it's great to have it coincide with a win. It was tactics—being able to commit to taking that kind of risk. It's really demanding on this hill. You see how tight the course is. If you try to back off in any spot, a few tenths can slip away from you and I didn't back off anywhere. I had my foot on the gas the whole time."
U.S. Alpine Men's Head Coach Sasha Rearick said, "Bode skied really well. He threw down an amazing run top to bottom. He executed what he said he was going to do in terms of line. It was aggressive and was fantastic execution. He tucked in places that he hasn't been tucking, so his downhill form and comfort is coming back and it's great to see him execute on the race.
"Skiing in front of the home crowd and having his family here brought the level of intensity up today that nobody was able to match."
On Saturday, Miller made a big mistake at the top of the super giant slalom course on a snowy and blustery day and settled for 21st. Olympic bronze medalist Andrew Weibrecht, 25, of Lake Placid, N.Y. continued his comeback from injury last year to put down a career-best top-10 World Cup—finishing in 10th place.
In Sunday's giant slalom weekend finale, first-run leader Ligety, 25, of Park City, Utah couldn't quite hold on. He finished second in the Audi Birds of Prey giant slalom Sunday in Beaver Creek. The winner was Austrian Marcel Hirscher. Still, it was Ligety's fourth World Cup podium in a Beaver Creek GS. Since 2006, he has never finished lower than fourth there.
Ligety said, "Second place is obviously good, but I wanted to win more than anything. I feel like I had room to improve after my first run, I had more speed. I've got my family and friends here from Park City so it's even more motivation to put up some good results.
"It's easy to make mistakes on this hill. There were certain parts where I skied well and others where I was all over the place. I knew exactly where I lost it. I had a little bobble on the bottom that lost me some time. I was a little soft in my turn instead of being completely confident. But this is a great hill to have a GS race on. It flows a lot better than Val d'Isere."
Ligety was hoping to have a good flow when the men staged their make-up GS at Beaver Creek.
Photo by U.S. Ski Team
Olympic downhill champion Lindsey Vonn
