Cornelia Huetter Wins Saturday's Alpine Ski World Cup Downhill in Val d'Isere

Cornelia Huetter Wins Saturday's Alpine Ski World Cup Downhill in Val d'Isere. Picture: HEAD SKI

Cornelia Huetter celebrated her first Alpine Ski World Cup victory of the season in Val d'Isere. Thanks to a perfect Downhill line, she beat Kira Weidle-Winkelmann by 0.26 seconds. Lindsey Vonn finished third, 0.35 seconds behind the Austrian.

Cornelia Huetter claimed her 10th World Cup win today. She is the 11th Austrian women’s skier to record double-figure World Cup wins across all disciplines. Since Huetter made her first Downhill podium in the 2013-2014 winter season, she has been Austria’s most successful women’s Downhill skier with five wins among 19 podiums in that time.

It is also the first victory of the season for the Austrian women's speed team and the first Austrian victory in Val d'Isere since Anna Veith won the Super-G in December 2017. The last Austrian Downhill victory in Val d'Isere dates back to 1978 with Annemarie Moser-Pröll.

"I nailed the line perfectly during the race. I fought all the way down to hold my line. In training, I was so bad, I was so slow. Today I didn't have much expectation about my speed, but it turned out I'm really fast. That counts for racing, so maybe I need some pressure inside of me to put everything out there, and today I did it," Huetter said.

Kira Weidle-Winkelmann claimed today her seventh Downhill podium in 72 World Cup starts. Her last podium, a third place in Cortina d'Ampezzo in the 2022-2023 winter season, came 20 Downhill races ago.

"I knew it was a solid run, but I really didn't think it would be enough for the podium. The top part was quite good, but the middle section, I thought I was holding too much on the line, so that's where Conny also gained a lot of time," she said.

In her 127 Downhill World Cup start, the 41-year-old US skier, Lindsey Vonn, claimed her third podium of the season. Lindsey Vonn now has 11 podiums in Val d’Isere, second-highest for women and men behind Marcel Hirscher on 15. She now has 141 Alpine Ski World Cup podiums, which is third-highest behind Mikaela Shiffrin (160) and Stenmark (155).

"It was okay. I skied well in the middle section. I was a bit slow at the Top, and then I made that big mistake at the bottom, where I went off into the snow. I still have the red bib, so it's alright. I know where the mistakes are and that I can be faster. That's the most important thing," Vonn said.