ALTENMARKT-ZAUCHENSEE, Austria (AP) — Lindsey Vonn showed again Saturday she is the standout downhill racer in this Olympic season.
Vonn led a World Cup downhill by 0.37 seconds and was set for her second win in four downhill races in this remarkable comeback racing at age 41 with her right knee rebuilt using titanium implants.
Kajsa Vickhoff Lie was second fastest and Vonn was jumping up cheering in the leader’s box when her teammate Jacqueline Wiles raced into third place, 0.48 back.
High-ranked racers had completed their runs when the race was delayed for 25 minutes while Austrian prospect Magdalena Egger was airlifted from the course after crashing. Egger was runner-up in Vonn’s season-opening downhill win last month at St. Moritz, Switzerland.
The standings were unofficial with lower-ranked racers yet to start.
On a shortened course that took her fewer than 67 seconds to complete, Vonn still clocked 130 kph (81 mph) for one of the fastest speeds any women racer will hit this season.
Vonn crossed the finish line with a look of determined satisfaction, punching the air with her right fist and nodding with short, sharp movements of her head.
With each victory, Vonn will extend her record as the oldest race winner in the 60-season history of the World Cup circuit.
The United States star later made a family video phone call alongside her coach Aksel Lund Svindal, the men’s downhill champion at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics where Vonn took bronze in the women’s race.
Vonn was Olympic downhill champion at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and shapes as a strong contender for the next gold medal race scheduled Feb. 8. It is at the storied Cortina d’Ampezzo slope where Vonn has excelled in her career.
Sofia Goggia, the 2018 Olympic champion, was outside the top-10 places Saturday trailing Vonn by 0.97.
The defending Olympic champion, Corinne Suter, made her season debut Saturday after injuries and was more than a second slower than Vonn.
Vonn will extend her lead in the season-long World Cup downhill standings, after finishing second and third in the other races. Saturday’s race was the fourth of nine scheduled downhills in the World Cup this season.
She is chasing a ninth World Cup downhill season title a full 10 years after her eighth.
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