Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg won Sunday’s Audi FIS Alpine World Cup Super G through heavy wet snowfall in Cortina on Sunday, ahead of Austria’s Nicole Schmidhofer and Tina Maze of Slovenia, who has been dominating the women’s alpine World Cup circuit this season.

Julia Mancuso, of Squaw Valley, Calif., survived a scare coming out of the start where she lost her pole and almost went out. She nevertheless blasted her way to fifth, just ahead of teammates Leanne Smith, of N. Conway, N.H., in sixth and Vail, Colo.’s Lindsey Vonn in seventh. Laurenne Ross, of Bend, Ore., finished 14^th.

“It was really tough to be fast today with it snowing so hard,” Mancuso said. “It was OK until the bottom and I had to wipe my goggles coming around the corner but I don’t think it cost me much time.”

“The snow came in pretty heavy this morning,” confirmed Smith. “There’s lots of little piles throughout the course. It’s one of those days where if you’re at the right time and right place you’re going to keep carrying your speed. If you get off line, forget it. You have to be aggressive.”

Vonn remains second in the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup super G standings wth Mancuso third.

Sunday’s race was the final speed event before next month’s FIS Alpine Ski World Championships in Schladming, Austria. The women’s tour now heads to Maribor, Slovenia for a pair of technical races this weekend, followed by the naming of the U.S. World Championship Team.

OFFICIAL RESULTS
Audi FIS Alpine World Cup
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – Jan. 20, 2013
Women’s Super G