VAL GARDENA – Swiss skier Silvan Zurbriggen won the men’s downhill race here on Saturday for his second ever World Cup victory and went top of the overall standings.
The 29-year-old Olympic combined and world slalom medallist – a distant cousin of Swiss great Pirmin Zurbriggen – beat home Austrian Romed Baumann by six hundreths of a second while Swiss veteran Didier Cuche was third, 10 hundreths of a second adrift.
Friday’s Super-g victor Austria’s Michael Walchhofer – a master of this course having recorded four victories and four runners-up spots here – finished fifth, 35 hundreths of a second behind. Meanwhile, Lindsey Vonn registered her second World Cup win of the season at Val d’Isere, France, in the women’s downhill, the American beating Swiss duo Nadja Kamer and Lara Gut.
Vonn’s 35th overall World Cup success came on top of her victory in the season-opening Super-G at Lake Louise at the start of the month. The Olympic downhill champion notched up her 19th success in the blue riband discipline by covering the Oreiller-Kiolly piste in a time of 1min 51.42s. Her arch rival, German Maria Riesch, the winner of the two downhills at Lake Louise at the start of the month, could manage only 20th, meaning she ceded her place at the top of the downhill standings to Vonn.
Riesch however retained her position at the top of the overall World Cup standings with a 40 point cushion over the American. Vonn, reflecting on her win, said: “I made a mistake (at the top of the piste) and I said to myself that I hoped to come in the top five, I tried my hardest to make up time, trying to take the turns neat and clean.
“After I’d finished I was sure Maria was going to beat me, so I’m very happy to have won today.”
