Vonn marks 70th World Cup win

By USSA

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta – Lindsey Vonn (Vail) took her 70th World Cup victory and third Lake Louise sweep on Sunday with a 1.32 second win over Austria’s Tamara Tippler.

The third World Cup win of the weekend for Lindsey Vonn didn’t matter quite as much to the speed queen as rounding off her career victory tally to a solid 70.

“My stepmom wrote me yesterday saying, ‘Sixty-nine is great, but I like round numbers so could you please just make it to 70?’ Last year I had 60 here, so it’s kind of nice,” said Vonn. “Seventy is a pretty big number.”

Vonn hushed any doubters who wondered if she could put an end to Swiss skier Lara Gut’s super G streak at Lake Louise, which had spanned the past two seasons, but there were more than a few bets on the line before she even pushed out of the starting gate.

“It was a big deal. I feel like there were some people that doubted whether I could win today, especially because Lara had won the last couple races here in super G. Also my technician made some bets with people, so I felt a little bit like I had to come through. It was my physio Lindsay’s last day with me traveling on the road, so I kind of wanted to end with a bang,” said Vonn.

With her smoothest of three runs all weekend, Vonn unseated race leader and practical unknown Tippler. Starting third, Tippler had capitalized on an early run down a pretty clean track and held a somewhat miraculous lead over the field, considering that her previous best super G finish was 21st in the 2014 Val d’Isere race and her career best had come yesterday with 16th in the downhill. Only Vonn was able to overtake the 39th-ranked super G skier on the day.

For all the spectacle of Vonn’s trifecta, Tippler’s teammate Conny Huetter also leaves Lake Louise with three podium results herself after finishing third in the super G. Before coming to Canada this year, Huetter had only stood on a World Cup podium once in her career.

Gut was looking for her third consecutive super G victory at the venue, but her run – 1.77 seconds off Vonn’s winning pace – proved only good enough for seventh place. She secured three top-10 results over the weekend but not a single top-five finish, and Vonn leapfrogged over both her and Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail, Colo.) to take the lead in the overall.

In the finish area, Gut shook her head and said through a chuckle, “Europe. I have to go back to Europe,” indicating that she is looking forward to stronger results on more familiar snow surfaces.

Although Shiffrin yielded her overall lead to Vonn, she emerged from the day with a solid performance in the debut World Cup speed race of her career. From bib 32, she made technical turns down the top of the course and crossed the finish line in a respectable 15th place.

Two other U.S. Ski Team athletes finished in the points – Laurenne Ross (Bend, Ore.) was 12th, and Stacey Cook (Mammoth Mountain) 17th.