TARVISIO, Italy (AP) — The Italian ski team is on a roll with less than three weeks to go before a home Olympics. And so is 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn.
Nicol Delago was in position to claim her first World Cup victory in a downhill on Saturday, with Vonn in third place for her fifth podium in five downhills this season.
Delago was looking to match Italian teammate Giovanni Franzoni, who claimed his first victory in a super-G in Wengen, Switzerland, on Friday.
The Milan Cortina Winter Games open on Feb. 6 with the women racing in Cortina d’Ampezzo and the men in Bormio.
Delago, who also led the final training session on Friday, finished 0.20 seconds ahead of Kira Weidle-Winkelmann of Germany and 0.26 ahead of Vonn.
Lower-ranked skiers were still coming down the course.
Delago’s previous best finishes were three second-place results and two third-place results. Her younger sister, Nadia, won the bronze medal in downhill at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Nadia Delago was 10th Saturday.
It was the first World Cup downhill in Tarvisio in 15 years and Vonn was one of only two athletes in the current field who had raced it before. In her six previous races in Tarvisio across downhill, super-G and super-combined, Vonn earned two wins and four runner-up finishes.
In the downhill standings, Vonn increased her advantage to 144 points ahead of Emma Aicher of Germany. Four World Cup downhills remain this season.
In the overall standings, Vonn moved up to third place with 510 points, trailing only American teammate Mikaela Shiffrin (923 points) and Camille Rast (753) — neither of whom are currently racing downhill.
The race was characterized by fog hovering over the course midway down — limiting visibility. Still, Vonn was fastest at both speed checks, registering 136.3 kph (84.7 mph) on top.
The Olympic downhill in Cortina is scheduled for Feb. 8.
A super-G is scheduled for Tarvisio on Sunday.
___
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
