Hoefl-Riesch strengthens speed credentials with downhill victory
Print Edition
Overall World Cup leader Maria Hoefl-Riesch won a shortened downhill yesterday in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy.
Hoefl-Riesch also established herself as the favorite to take gold in the women’s downhill at the Sochi Olympics on February 12.
With her parents and husband in attendance, the German won in 1 minute, 17.84 seconds on the Olympia delle Tofane course for the 27th World Cup victory of her career.
Afterward, Hoefl-Riesch said she tweaked her left knee while landing a jump and that she felt some pain but was not overly concerned.
Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein finished second, 0.31 seconds behind, and Nicole Schmidhofer of Austria was third with the No. 39 bib, 0.75 behind.
Lara Gut of Switzerland was fourth and Stacey Cook of the United States was fifth as the pair missed out on the podium by 0.01 and 0.03 seconds, respectively.
It was the best result this season for Cook, who finished second in two downhills last season in Lake Louise, Alberta.
The victory gave Hoefl-Riesch an 85-point lead over Weirather in the downhill standings after six of eight races, with wins worth 100 points each.
In the overall standings, Hoefl-Riesch leads Weirather by 158 points.
Due to overnight snow and difficulty preparing the course, the start was delayed for half an hour and the course was shortened slightly — chopping off about 20 seconds of racing time.
With softer snow and flat light, it was a sharp change in conditions from Wednesday’s only training run, which was held under bright sunshine.
Elisabeth Goergl, the Austrian who won a super-G on Thursday, lost control after hitting a gate and slammed into the safety padding at full speed.
However, she got right back up, skied down and said she was not injured.
Another downhill is scheduled for today, followed by a second super-G tomorrow to round out a series of four races in four days.
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