Sunday News

Vonn beats Maze to win World Cup giant slalom

MARIBOR, Slovenia (AP) -- Lindsey Vonn showed she can beat Tina Maze in the Slovenian's best discipline and on her home snow.

While it may be too late to challenge her biggest rival for the overall World Cup title, Vonn is looking like Maze's biggest challenger at next month's world championships.

The American proved that she has fully recovered from a recent illness by winning a World Cup giant slalom, her second win in two weeks.

Vonn was third behind Maze after the first run but overcame several errors in the second to put down the fastest time and create a margin that Maze couldn't overcome. Vonn won in 2 minutes, 22.2 seconds for her first GS victory since last March.

"In the second run I decided, OK, it's all or nothing, I had to go for it," Vonn said. "It's been a rough year for me in GS, so it's just perfect."

Maze still clinched her third giant slalom discipline title by placing second. Maze had a near-perfect first run, but a poor start to the second cost her valuable time and she finished 0.08 seconds behind Vonn.

With her 59th World Cup win overall, Vonn's just three away from equaling Annemarie Moser Proell's record on the women's side. She earned her first GS victory since last March and back-to-back wins after taking the downhill last week at Cortina D'Ampezzo.

Vonn took nearly a month off over the holidays to recover from an intestinal illness that landed her in the hospital in November. While her break allowed Maze to build an even bigger lead in the overall standings, Vonn said it's clear she made the right decision.

"A couple of weeks ago, everyone was thinking I was crazy taking this time off," Vonn said. "But I felt my body wasn't ready. Now I am ready."n