Story highlights
Lindsey Vonn secures third career Lake Louise treble
Super-G victory on Sunday follows two downhill wins
Overall World Cup title rival Shiffrin 15th on Sunday
Lindsey Vonn’s record-breaking love affair with Lake Louise continues.
On Sunday, the 31-year-old completed her third career hat-trick of World Cup wins at the Alberta resort.
After back-to-back downhill triumphs on Friday and Saturday, Vonn posted the largest women’s World Cup super-G winning margin in nearly 19 years on Sunday.
She was 1.32 seconds ahead of Austria’s Tamara Tippler.
“It was a big deal,” said the 2010 Olympic downhill champion. “I feel like there were some people that doubted whether I could win today.”
Vonn had earlier won Friday’s downhill by half a second. On Saturday, she was a full second ahead of anyone else for victory number two.
The American also swept all three Lake Louise races in 2011 and 2012, and has 18 career wins at the venue in 41 starts. Sunday’s was her 70th World Cup win in all, making the all-time record of 86 World Cup wins — set by Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark — look increasingly beatable.
However, Vonn spent the week playing down her early-season success.
“I still don’t think I’m quite to the form that I was in 2012, the season that I won the four [World Cup] titles,” she told reporters on Saturday.
“I think I could still be better, but I’m still happy with where I am.”
Fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin, fresh from record-breaking slalom victories in Aspen last week, made her World Cup super-G debut on Sunday.
The 20-year-old, who hopes this season to challenge Vonn in the speed disciplines, finished 2.29 seconds off the latter’s pace in 15th place.
Vonn has four career overall World Cup titles to her name — awarded by aggregating a full season’s results in skiing’s slalom, giant slalom, super-G, downhill and combined disciplines.
Shiffrin has three straight slalom World Cup titles but is bidding for her first overall World Cup season trophy.
She and Vonn are considered the leading contenders. Both have started the season with dominant weekends in their favoured events.
As the circuit heads to Sweden next weekend, Vonn leads Shiffrin by the slim margin of four points atop the World Cup standings.
“I still want to push as hard as I possibly can. That’s what I love,” said Vonn after her second downhill victory.
“I love the thrill of it. Just because I’m older doesn’t mean I’ve lost any desire to continue to win and to continue to ski fast.”
