Vonn 15th on downhill return as Siebenhofer wins in Cortina

Veteran American ski star Lindsey Vonn finished joint 15th on Friday in the Cortina d'Ampezzo downhill, her first World Cup race this season which she skied with both her knees in braces as she returns from injury. Austria's Ramona Siebenhofer gained her first ever victory in 1min 15.44sec in a race which had been shortened because of heavy overnight snow. The 34-year-old Vonn had been out since November with a knee injury, but chose Cortina where she has won 12 races, to reboot her bid to overhaul Ingemar Stenmark's all time record of 86 World Cup wins. "I always hope that it will be easy to come back and get on the podium, but things have to go my way. I didn't execute," said the former Olympic champion who remains on 82 career World Cup victories. "In my career, I've only twice skied with braces, it's definitely not aerodynamic, but better than nothing. I do what I have to do. "It's good to get that under my belt. I had to be realistic and understand that I haven't skied in a couple of months. It's a good place to start." Vonn did well over the sharp, steep part of the course but struggled on the more technical second part, flying over the finish line 1.19 seconds slower than Friday's winner, with her arms aloft and blowing kisses to the crowd. "I felt good, really happy but I made a big mistake and lost my grip, otherwise I was positive, attacking, charging," said Vonn. Friday's downhill replaces the race in St Anton in Austria last weekend which was called off due to heavy snowfall. Siebenhofer had the perfect race with the course starting lower down the Olympia delle Tofane piste. "It was good for me not to start on the top," said Vonn. "Better I didn't have that (top) jump but at the same time I ski pretty well on the top, no matter," said Vonn who will also compete in Saturday's downhill and the Super-G on Sunday. "I'm going to change my underwear and change my race suit and maybe that will be better," she warned. It was the first win for 27-year-old Siebenhofer, after two third place finishes in Lake Louise in 2015 and Val Gardena last December. "Big emotions," said the Austrian. "Not so many girls are there on the top who can maybe ski faster. I was really nervous to wait for the last racer. "I had a good feeling, maybe the key was I wasn't too fast in the second training run yesterday." Slovenia's Ilka Stuhec was second at 0.40sec, to close in on World Cup downhill leader Nicole Schmidhofer who finished 12th, with Stephanie Venier of Austria third at 0.46.