Dominant Vonn goes fastest in World Cup downhill training

Vail's Lindsey Vonn was just one one-hundredth of a second off the pace of Switzerland's Lara Gut in a super-combined event at Val d'Isere on Friday, winning the downhill but coming up short in the slalom - an event she's only trained for twice this season.

Gut's second win of the season, moved her into second place in the overall season standings.

“I feel like I’m skiing well in slalom — shockingly — and if I do a bit more training I’ll be fine.

"It was not like Mikaela skis, but I tried to give my best", Gut said, referring to the slalom skills of injured American skier, Mikaela Shiffrin. And it finally was enough. "I'm especially happy to win here", she added.

When Vonn won a downhill in Val d'Isere 10 years ago to the day, she was presented with a cow.

32 seconds ahead of Swiss skier Lara Gut and. The pressure was on Gut, but after she beat Michaela Kirchgasser's time to take the race lead, the tables were turned on Vonn. However, Gut nailed the top portion of the slalom course to pull into the lead.

Gut, who also won a giant slalom last month in Aspen, Colorado, pumped her fist with joy after crossing the line. 01 down at the first and second time splits on the Oreiller Killy course.

Despite the absence of some competitors, the top three had reason to celebrate and Kirchgasser and Vonn certainly showed it, breaking out into a champagne fight at the awards ceremony.

"I remember the weather being really bad and Janica (Kostelic) was trying to make me nervous", Vonn said. "It took me a while to kind of get into the rhythm of everything". "I want to focus on the events I'm best at". "Lara definitely did a really good job in slalom and had a very good performance in downhill".

"Maybe one hundredth faster would've been nice, but you know, you win and lose by hundredths all the time", Vonn said. Getting out of the start was really hard.

In the downhill portion of the combined, Americans Laurenne Ross, Jackie Wiles and Stacey Cook had strong showings in fourth, sixth and seventh, and they hope to carry that momentum into Saturday's downhill. "They couldn't get my skis off because I was too far away from them". "But I knew there was a cow in the finish and that's what I wanted to win".

Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) was second in the women's alpine combined at the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in Val D'Isere, France.