Vonn ninth as Siebenhofer completes Cortina World Cup downhill double
Former Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn finished ninth on Saturday in her second race since returning from a knee injury, as Austria's Ramona Siebenhofer made it two World Cup downhill wins in as many days. The 34-year-old American, wearing knee braces, improved on her 15th place in Friday's race at Cortina d'Ampezzo. Siebenhofer, 27, chalked up just the second World Cup win of her career as she clocked 1min 36.22sec to finish four hundredths of a second ahead of compatriot Nicole Schmidhofer, who retains the lead in the World Cup downhill standings. Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia rounded out the placings, 0.51sec behind Siebenhofer, with Vonn crossing the line 1.36sec adrift in her final downhill race in the Italian Dolomites resort. "I didn't feel great, but it's not going to get a lot better, I just have to deal with it," said Vonn. "It's a little bit rougher than I expected. Today was a step in the right direction," said Vonn, who has won a record 12 times down the Olimpia delle Tofane course -- six downhill and six Super-G. Vonn's final race in the Italian resort will be Sunday's Super-G as she looks reboot her bid to overhaul Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark's all time record of 86 World Cup wins. "I still have a lot more races this season, it's taking me a bit longer to be up and running," who is five wins off breaking Stenmark's record. "I've had worse injuries that I have come back from but last year was a tough year. "Right now it's just about building my confidence back up and hopefully my knee will be better for the world championship." - Austrians dominate - Under the sunshine in the Italian Dolomites, Siebenhofer hit speeds of 130km/h to better Schmidhofer, who has also won two races this season, and holds the overall World Cup in the discipline by just eight points on her Austrian rival. "Amazing that I did it again, unbelievable," said Siebenhofer. "It's an amazing landscape and when you go down you're getting faster and faster. "Because it was my first victory yesterday there were many emotions. I tried to focus on the race, but I couldn't sleep." Austrians have dominated the downhill this season apart from Val Gardena in the Italian Alps which Stuhec won last month, along with the Super G. The Slovenian, the 2017 World Cup downhill Golden Globe champion, followed on her second place from Friday as she also returns from a knee injury this season. "Today was really perfect downhill, starting from the top of the course, the weather was good, the slope amazing," said Stuhec. "My run was ok, not the best but fast enough to be here again." Olympic downhill champion Sofia Goggia of Italy did not compete in her home race where she won last season as she recovers from a fractured ankle, but is expected to make her return in Garmisch, Germany. Overall World Cup leader Mikaela Shiffrin -- going for a record of World Cup wins in one season -- skipped the downhill races in Cortina to focus on Sunday's Super G.
