Tarvisio, Italy – Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn secured the 10th Audi FIS Alpine World Cup title of her career Friday by holding off a surging Tina Maze of Slovenia to snatch her second straight super combined title. Maze won the race, yet missed the crystal globe by a narrow eight points as Riesch finished third on the day and in the season-long super combined standings.n”It was a great day. I knew that it was really close with the points and I knew I had to ski great slalom run to get the title,” said Vonn, of Vail, Colo. “I don’t think it was my best slalom run, but I was aggressive the whole way and that was my goal. Super combined titles are not easy to win because there are only three races so you can’t make any mistakes.”
Vonn finished second in the race with fastest downhill and third fastest slalom.
“I’ve been struggling a lot in slalom this year,” Vonn acknowledged, “but I have been training well, especially the last few weeks. I’ve had a lack of self confidence which comes from not finishing very many slalom races in the last two years, so today I knew I had nothing to lose and I had to go out and take the title if I wanted it. I wanted it badly.”
“We know that she can kill the downhill, so that wasn’t a surprise, the impressive part was the slalom,” Alex Hoedlmoser, U.S. Ski Team women’s Head Coach, said of Vonn’s performance on Friday. “She’s been with it all season in training, but for some reason has backed off on race day and today she went out and was fantastic in the slalom.”
The crystal globe is Vonn’s career 10th World Cup title. She won the overall and downhill titles in 2008, 2009 and 2010, the super G titles in 2009 and 2010, and the super combined in 2010. Maria Riesch of Germany, who was third on Friday, continues to lead overall by 196 over Vonn. A downhill is scheduled for Saturday in Tarvisio, and Vonn leads Riesch by 103 points in the downhill standings.
“To a degree it was good that Lindsey just had to go out and attack it in the slalom. She knew that she had to beat Maria and that’s what was in her mind. In the last couple of races she had other things in her mind, but today was just like ‘I want this title, so I just need to go’,” added Hoedlmoser.
All American racers finished inside the top 20 on Friday, with Julia Mancuso of Squaw Valley, Calif. sixth, and Conway, N.H.’s Leanne Smith ninth. They were followed by Laurenne Ross, or Klamath Falls, Ore., in 19th, just ahead of Stacey Cook, of Mammoth Mountain, Calif., who stopped the clock in 20th.
“The girls were all in communication today and they knew they had to be smart,” Hoedlmoser explained. “This was obviously great results for the whole team. Having everyone was in the top 20 and three in the top 10 is awesome. Everyone is pumped for tomorrow’s downhill.”
“Leanne had a really good downhill run and Julia also had a great run of slalom today,” Vonn added. “For Leanne to be in the top 10 of super combined is really cool. We’re all skiing well right now. We have some great depth to our team and it’s fun to be around.”
Marie-Michèle Gagnon finished 17th for the Canadian women. The 22 year-old from Lac-Etchemin, Quebec clocked the 10th fastest slalom run to jump up 20 spots in the final rankings. Whistler, British Columbia’s Britt Janyk only took part in the downhill portion of the race to train ahead of Saturday’s downhill race.
Because of the heavy snow fall that occurred two days ago the downhill run got faster as the girls went down. Unfortunately for Gagnon, she was the seventh athlete out of the start gate for the first run.
“It was a little hard to have a great run from where I started this morning,” said Gagnon. “I didn’t have the luck of the draw. Because of the snow conditions on the track, the girls that started later had a cleaner and faster track than the first girls.”
OFFICIAL RESULTS
Audi FIS Alpine World Cup
Tarvisio, Italy – March 4, 2011
Super Combined
1. Tina Maze, Slovenia, 2:13.54
2. Lindsey Vonn, Vail, CO, 2:13.72
3. Maria Riesch, Germany, 2:14.09