Vonn takes overall World Cup lead with super-G win

Larisa Yurkiw of Canada was second, 0.28sec behind, with Lara Gut of Switzerland third, 0.67sec off the pace.

Gut retained the overall lead in World Cup standings, with 810 points compared to Vonn’s 800, but the Swiss racer will again come under pressure on Sunday as the American aims for a double, with a super-G scheduled for 10:30 GMT.

The American notched her 37th tournament success in the discipline at the Cortina d’Ampezzo downhill race in Italy – one more than was achieved by Austria’s Moser-Proell during her 1970s pomp.

She clocked one minute 37.01 seconds on the 2.6 kilometre course to pass Moser-Proell’s tally of downhill victories and add yet another 100 points to her haul for the season.

Certainly the Italian resort has been one of Vonn’s favourite hunting grounds, her downhill win on Saturday remarkably was her 10th in Cortina during her career, second only to Lake Louise for her success.

“So I try to stay focused on skiing, and I thought I skied really well on the top and went a little too straight at the bottom, but still was able to pull it off”, Vonn said.

“No, no, no. Stop talking about Ingemar”, Vonn said.

Vonn won her first downhill in 2004 – the same year she earned her first podium finish in Cortina. “And to have surpassed her now it’s kind of hard to process all of these records”.

The win sees Vonn move 45 points clear of second-placed Lara Gut at the top of the overall World Cup standings. I just need to ski solid and not have any mistakes and then the results will come and then the records will come.

Vonn has now snatched most of the records in women’s ski racing, particularly on the speed side.

“For sure, the total World Cup wins is more important but, at the same time, to be the best female downhill World Cup skier of all time is pretty freaking cool”, Vonn said. “I think I’ve had more wins in Lake Louise because we usually have three races there”.