Alpine Skiing: Vonn eyes Vancouver golden treble – AFP News : Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics
Paris (AFP) – American star Lindsey Vonn is set to make up for her Olympic heartbreak in Turin by targeting at least three golds at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.
It may seem a bold objective given the fact that, for many athletes, the Olympic Games represent a career highlight.
However, statistics speak for themselves. And even some of Vonn’s closest rivals admit they can do little to stop the American dominating the coveted speed events in Vancouver.
“She’s unbeatable, at least on some of the downhill courses,” Germany’s Maria Riesch said at the Val d’Isere round of the women’s World Cup in December where Vonn won a super-combined and placed third in the super-G.
Since then, the 25-year-old Vonn has left the likes of Riesch picking up the crumbs, skiing confidently towards a third consecutive overall World Cup title, winning five downhills, a super-combined and a super-G in the process.
At Haus im Ennstal in Austria last week she joined the elite few to have achieved a clean sweep of three races in a single weekend when she won two downhills and a super-G.
As well as leading the World Cup overall competition in what appears a two-woman race with her great friend Riesch, Vonn has tightened her grip on the downhill and super-G standings, and also leads the super-combined.
With the super-combined, downhill and super-G all held within six days in Vancouver beginning February 14, Vonn’s most recent successes have left her with the confidence she needs ahead of the Olympic challenge.
After a training accident curtailed her ambitions in Turin four years ago, Vonn, both mentally and physically, could not be in a better place.
“It’s good to know that I can do it,” Vonn said last week after her impressve hat-trick gave her her 28th win of her career.
“There was definitely a little bit more pressure because everybody was wanting me to do the three in a row, and I wanted to do it myself.
“So it’s just good to know I can ski under pressure, and it just gives me more and more confidence going into Vancouver.”
At Whistler, Franz’s Run will host the women’s competition.
In the super-combined, Vonn’s downhill skills are likely to give her the kind of cushion she needs for the second leg slalom, not her strongest event.
Three days later she will bid to succeed retired downill defending champion Michaela Dorfmeister. The Austrian also won the super-G in Turin, and Vonn will start that race as favourite on February 20.
From there, things get more complicated for the American, who is less at ease in the technical events.
Germany’s Kathrin Hoelzl is the current World Cup giant slalom leader but she is likely to be pushed all the way by Kathrin Zettel, currently third in the World Cup race.
Riesch, whose early career was curtailed by injury which robbed her of two seasons, admitted she has “just had to get used to” seeing Vonn win all the time – although she is putting up a fight.
The big German currently leads the women’s World Cup slalom competition and will likely battle Austria’s Marlies Schild and Frenchwoman Sandrine Aubert for the Olympic title.
However Riesch, an all-rounder who is second to Vonn in the World Cup overall and downhill standings, remains one of the few women capable of upsetting the American in the blue riband event.
jd/dj10