CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy - Lindsey Vonn's nickname of late is "the winning machine" ... and for good reason. Vonn, who is auctioning off her race bib to raise money for recovery efforts in Haiti, won Friday's super G in Cortina by more than a half a second.

She breezed down the fast, tricky course that tripped up several competitors in 1 minute, 21.74 seconds, .67 seconds ahead of second place Fabienne Suter and .74 seconds ahead of third place Anja Paerson.

With the win Vonn reclaims the World Cup overall lead with 994-938 points over Maria Riesch, who was one of several racers to make a crucial mistake on course Friday and ended up 15th.

"I'm really happy," Vonn said. "Thankfully the technical races can't hold me down. I feel like I'm finally in a good rhythm. I just keep fighting in super G and downhill. I know what to do now. I just have to ski aggressively and I have to trust my line."

Vonn started No. 18 in the race and when Paerson, starting No. 16, crossed the finish line with a decent lead, she shook her head in frustration ... a strange reaction for someone skiing into first place, but accurate, because she knew right away that Vonn would come down and beat her.

"I really wanted it today, but I knew Lindsey would win it," said Paerson, who won the 2006 super G in Cortina. "She never [makes] a mistake. If you want to win the race, you can't [make] a mistake. That's how big it is at the moment on the World Cup in super G and downhill. The level is so high, you have to be perfect the whole way down. I was just wobbling around on my skis. I had a good run coming to the last traverse. There I had a huge mistake."

The trickiest part of Friday's course was that racers reached several gates blind ... coming around turns or over jumps and as Riesch said after she came into one turn way too hot and had to slam on the brakes to make the next gate, no matter how carefully racers mentally document the course in their one inspection, it's always different in execution.

"It's always hard to have exactly the right line from inspection and to bring it into the race because you're so quick everywhere and when you stand there for inspection you go, 'OK I can look on this or this sign for my direction, then you come there with 100 [kilometers per hour] and you have no time for looking."

Contrary to how it looked to her competitors - and to everyone else for that matter - Vonn did make a mistake in her run ... or so she said.

"There were a lot of blind gates and it's a pretty fast course so you had to know exactly where you were going and have the pressure and the timing right. I made a mistake on the bottom - my pressure wasn't exactly perfect - but I kept it going thankfully," she said.

Suter, who has three World Cup victories - two in SG and one in downhill and who had seven podiums last season was happy to get her first podium of the season.

"I was very excited to come back on the podium today," she said, adding that in addition to having a clear mental picture of the race course after the one inspection, success on this course as much as any other on the SG circuit also required a lot instinct. "

"You had to have it very good in your head," she said. "It's always between [too little] risk or too much risk. Then you need a little instinct during the race. That's the most important thing. Today it was a good one."

Vonn has now won every downhill race this season (five straight since finals last season) and, besides her second place in Lake Louise and her third place in Val d'Isere, also every super G race since last year's stop in Cortina (when she was eighth). Because of this, she is feeling much more confident about winning the overall ... again. Sunday's race and the finals in March are the only two giant slaloms remaining in the season and just one more slalom at finals.

"I'm pretty positive, pretty optimistic right now," she said. "There aren't too many technical events left, so if I can execute the next couple weeks, I hope that things should be looking better."

Even Riesch acknowledges that with Vonn's domination of speed events, the overall globe is likely to slip further away from her grasp. Although as an all-around skier, the German is certainly the best in the world at the moment as far as consistency, with podiums in each discipline this season, many back-to-back.

"I think when you look [at] all-arounders, I actually do it the best," Riesch said. "But if you're dominating in two disciplines like Lindsey is then it doesn't matter if you're bad in the others because you're making 100 points in every speed event. I'm good in every discpline but not good enough."

When asked if she would like to be challenged more by her competitors in speed events, Vonn answered with a definitive "no."

"I'm happy just the way things are," she said. "I felt like when Renate [Goetschl] was winning that she was untouchable. You just have to keep fighting and doing the best that you can. You can never be satisfied. You can never think that you've won before you've gone out of the starting gate. For me the challenge is to constantly have a better run and learn from my mistakes, pushing myself further and further. I feel like I have a lot of challenge from a lot of girls. Anja Paerson for one .. she's out there attacking. I know she's going to be really, really hungry tomorrow for a win."

Racing continues in Cortina on Saturday with the downhill.

by Shauna Farnell / SkiRacing Magazine
FISalpine.com
Friday 22 January 2010