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Vonn Tests 2009 Worlds Downhill
Newly crowned World Cup overall and downhill champion Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) held off on applying the summer wax for a rare opportunity to train on the 2009 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships downhill course April 6-7 in Val d'Isere.
Following the cancellation of the January 2007 World Cup stop in Val d'Isere due to lack of snow, it was the only look international competitors will have of the Solaise course until the Feb. 15-30 championships.
Val d'Isere will be tough
"We had incredible conditions with absolutely perfect snow, probably some of the best World Cup conditions we've had all season," said Vonn, who flew to Europe directly after the Nature Valley U.S. Alpine Championships to test with Rossignol for next season and check out Val d'Isere.
"It's a tough course. The top is straight forward, but the middle and bottom are really challenging and you have to be on it. The first day, I made some big mistakes and missed a gate, but the second run I dialed it and will have a major boost of confidence for 2009"
Only the top 30 FIS ranked skiers, plus one additional skier from each nation were invited with athletes from Germany, Spain, Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland participating along with the French, who were holding an extended training camp in conjunction with the event.
"I was really surprised that there weren't a lot more of the big name girls there. I think Maria [Reisch, Germany] and I were really the only top racers there. It's been a long and tiring season, but I'm really glad I was able to get the extra look."
Vonn, Mancuso High Five
Prior to Val d'Isere, Vonn and teammate Julia Mancuso (Olympic Valley, CA) took part in another invite only event, the April 5 Verbier High Five, a celebrity ski event in Verbier, Switzerland. The ninth annual contest brought out top skiers and snowboarders from across the world of snow sports to compete in giant slalom, a speed trap, skier or snowboardcross, parallel slalom and Vonn's favorite, the triathlon.
"It was a ton of fun, super relaxed and such a great way to wind down after the season," said Vonn. You have to compete in all the events and then they name a champion at the end. I did pretty good in all of them, but mastered the triathlon where you had to sled down a hill, then run with your sled, hook into this bungee thing, run then catch a Carlsberg. I owned that event."
Other highlights for Vonn included racing against Mancuso and Brit Chemmy Alcott in the skier cross and beating husband Thomas Vonn in the speed trap.
"The skier cross was hilarious. Julia stuck her pole between Chemmy's legs at the start so they were all tangled up and I had a huge lead, but then both of them started skipping gates to catch up. We were all missing gates and laughing the whole time. Then Thomas got to forerun the speed trap event. He thought he had it dialed with this weird squat position on the back of his skis, but I still beat him," she said.
James Blunt "real highlight"
"But the real highlight was meeting James Blunt," said Vonn. "We were just standing there and someone said 'Lindsey I want to introduce you to James.' I turned around and was like 'wait a minute, this is James Blunt.'"
Norway's Aksel Svindal Lund, the 2007 World Cup overall champion, celebrated his return to racing four months after his spectacular crash in Beaver Creek, CO, won the men's event. Swiss Fraenzi Aufdenblatten was the women's champion.
Following the High Five, Mancuso headed off to Bali for a women's only surf and yoga camp, while Vonn spent a few days hanging out with Reisch in Garmisch, Germany before returning home for a much needed break.
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Vonn Tests 2009 Worlds Downhill
