Lindsey Vonn lost her right ski coming around a turn, crashing and sliding down the race course for about 10 seconds before coming to a stop, getting up and standing and gliding down the mountain on her own power in a World Cup downhill Friday.
“I was getting a little bit bounced by the ice there, and I was a little bit inside of my body position, and my ski just came off,” Vonn told media in La Thuile, Italy. “Besides the weather, that’s the one thing that you can’t control. I did my job. … I was just more pissed than anything else. … The whole thing is a little bit perplexing to me. Normally, none of this should happen.”
Vonn was faster than race winner Lara Gut at the first split time before she crashed about halfway down the course and failed to finish.
“I’ll probably be pretty bruised,” Vonn said. “I slid on my hip for quite a ways. It’s all right. No one’s going to see it.”
The Swiss Gut prevailed by 1.02 seconds over Austrian Cornelia Huetter, with Italian Nadia Fanchini third. Full results are here.
Gut overtook Vonn as the standings leader for the World Cup overall title, the biggest prize in the sport this season with no Olympics or World Championships.
It’s a 13-point advantage with one month left this season. Race winners receive 100 points, with a descending points award for each of the top 30 finishers.
Vonn is slated this weekend for two more chances to add to her 76 World Cup wins (and chase the record of 86 wins held by retired Swede Ingemar Stenmark) with a downhill and a super-G in La Thuile on Saturday and Sunday.
The races will air live on NBC Sports Live Extra. NBC will also air coverage Saturday at 3 p.m. ET.
“I only made it halfway down, so my legs are pretty fresh,” Vonn said.
