Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany – A weakened Lindsey Vonn came within .44 seconds of defending her FIS Alpine World Ski Championships downhill title Sunday with a silver medal performance leading three Americans into the top 10. Super G silver medalist Julia Mancuso was sixth and Laurenne Ross posted a career-best 10th on spring-like snow conditions. Austrian Elisabeth Goergl earned gold to sweep the women’s speed events ahead of hometown favorite Maria Riesch, who earned her second bronze of the Championships.n”Today feels like a gold medal. It’s a really great feeling and I couldn’t be happier,” said Vonn, of Vail, Colo., who was fighting the residual effects of a concussion sustained a little more than a week earlier in a training crash “I could feel the speed today. I think I made some really good turns and I was happy with my skiing. There were great conditions out there. It was a fun downhill and I enjoyed racing it.
“Lizzy [Goergl] has stepped up and she’s done incredibly well,” Vonn added. “Her runs were amazing. I watched her run from the super combined and I thought ‘wow’. She’s stepping up and it’s really cool to see. She’s a really hard worker and a very nice person. It’s fun to see people really step up in World Championship events. I’m really happy for her.”
Mancuso, of Squaw Valley, Calif., said that the course conditions were improved on Saturday from those for training runs earlier in the week.
“The surface is actually really good,” she said. “My game plan was just to take risks and make sure to not give myself any room for mistakes. I executed the second half of the course, but unfortunately I’m not sure where the time when on the top part. It’s amazing how different your strategy has to be if the snow changes and it’s amazing how different the course can change. Today it was like frozen spring skiing as opposed to the ice we had in the first training run.”
“It got a lot softer over the last couple of days,” added Ross, of Klamath Falls, Ore. “The first day when we free skied before the super G it was insanely hard, but now it’s like there’s not even a patch of ice left – it’s like slush spring snow.”
Ross was thrilled with her 10th place result at a World Championships.
“This is the best result of my career and I’m glad that it happened at World Champs,” she said. “I really nailed the bottom part of the course. I knew coming into the difficult section that I had to nail it. It wasn’t a perfect run, but it was one of the better runs that I’ve had.”
Canada’s lone entrant in Sunday’s downhill, Whistler, British Columbia’s Britt Janyk, finished 15th. had to deal with difficult snow conditions after starting with bib No. 25.
“I went out of the gate and raced hard and I felt confident on the hill. I knew that if I put a strong run down that I could be right in there but unfortunately I don’t think my bib number was good,” said Janyk.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
2011 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany – February 13, 2011
Downhill
1. Elisabeth Goergl, Austria, 1:47.24
2. Lindsey Vonn, Vail, CO, 1:47.68
3. Maria Riesch, Germany, 1:47.84