ST. MORITZ, Switzerland – In a surprising start to the world ski championships, Lindsey Vonn failed to finish the super-G on Tuesday and Nicole Schmidhofer won a race for the first time in her career.
Vonn arrived in St. Moritz with a women’s record 77 career wins in World Cup races. The 27-year-old Schmidhofer had zero.
Still, Vonn struggled to grip her right ski pole — a lingering problem since breaking her right upper arm in November — and seemed uneasy before taking a too-straight line and went off the course midway down.
“I feel like [my hand] is strong enough then I’m in the course and I don’t know where my pole is,” said Vonn, who last won a gold medal at the world championships in 2009.
Schmidhofer had only had one runner-up finish since joining the World Cup circuit in 2007, and even that super-G result was four years ago.
After crossing the finish line, the Austrian leaned back and screamed in joy when she saw she was 0.33 seconds faster than second-place Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein.
Pre-race favorite Lara Gut of Switzerland, starting immediately before Schmidhofer, was third, 0.36 behind.
Gut slumped in the finish area and shook her head after seeing she trailed then-leader Weirather’s time.
Both Gut and Vonn came to the worlds in less than ideal shape after crashing at the previous World Cup races in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
After bad weather wiped out Monday’s planned training session, all racers were getting a first good look at the course — and in a super-G race which rewards the ability to adapt at speed to an unfamiliar gate-setting.
Schmidhofer did just that and was the first to clock 62 mph at the fastest point of the course.
Weirather, who won a World Cup super-G on the Corviglia course last March, won her first career championship medal after missing the past two Olympics because of injury.
Gut got her fifth career medal at the worlds but is still seeking her first title.
GRAHAM DUNBAR
