Aicher Wins, Vonn Second In No 2 St. Moritz Downhill

If Lindsey Vonn's (USA/Head) win in Friday's St. Moritz Downhill was a blast from the past, the next generation showed on Saturday that it has arrived in the form of Emma Aicher (GER/Head).

The 22-year-old German rising star claimed her third World Cup win and her first in sunny Switzerland, mastering the Corviglia course with a flawless run that her more decorated rivals could not match.

After first Sofia Goggia (ITA/Atomic) and then Vonn took the lead with fast but imperfect runs, Aicher took advantage of the time they left on the course to win in 1:30.50 and step above the two ski racing greats on the podium.

Aicher, who finished fifth in Friday's first downhill, made the necessary adjustments on Saturday despite more difficult snow conditions to finish 0.24 seconds ahead of runner-up Vonn, with Goggia 0.05s further back in third.

"It was a bit more bumpy than yesterday, so you felt it," Aicher said. "But my coach always tells me, 'If it's bumpy, you have to push even more,' so I just tried to do that. I just tried to just do the things better than yesterday and I think I managed that pretty well."

The German young gun, who was born just under three years after Vonn made her first World Cup start, shared the podium with two skiers who have 109 World Cup wins between them and are still hungry for more.

Skiing with bib No.9 after missing the podium by 0.15 seconds in fourth place on Friday, Goggia's run was the type of rollercoaster ride that has typified her career and brought her 19 World Cup Downhill wins.

The Italian was wild in parts of the upper-middle section, then found herself very late and out of the blue racing corridor on a sweeping left-footed turn lower down.

She recovered to take the provisional lead, but even with the green light in the finish area, she was already lamenting her mistakes and suspected — correctly — that her time would not hold up.

"I'm sorry for that left foot (turn), I was really, really low," Goggia said. "I tried to push it but I felt I lost the speed. I didn't really expect that it would have brought me that low. But at the same time, I think my performance was OK. It was a solid performance, both today and yesterday."

Two skiers later, Goggia's good friend Vonn set the women's record with her 410th World Cup start and flew out of the gate full of confidence after her historic win on Friday, when she became the oldest skier to win a World Cup race.

But the 41-year-old wasn't as clean on Saturday as she was 24 hours earlier, with a wild landing on a jump in the mid-section resulting in her falling behind Goggia's splits.

Vonn recovered and made up the time that Goggia had lost further down the course to take the lead by 0.05 of a second, but left enough room for someone else to overtake her. The next skier, Aicher, did just that.

"I'm a little bit tired from yesterday, it was a lot of emotion," Vonn admitted. "I thought I skied pretty well on top, I just made a mistake in the middle. I went in a little bit too direct and wasn't quite in balance and then I fell on my hip when I landed. Didn't ski the bottom the way I wanted to, but I'm really happy to be on the podium again and I still have the leader bid, so that's important to me."

Although she said she skied some parts of the course better than on Friday, Vonn will use her shortcomings from Saturday as motivation to keep improving.

"I always learn something, for sure," she said. "I still wish I didn't have to learn from my mistakes because I would have loved to have had a better performance today. But I'm happy to get these mistakes out of the way early in the season so hopefully I don't make them again."

Vonn's teammate, Downhill world champion Breezy Johnson (USA/Atomic), and Saturday's third-place skier Mirjam Puchner (AUT/Atomic) took their shots at Aicher's time at the back end of the top-seeded group, but neither could put together a complete run to challenge the young German.

Johnson held the green light through the third intermediate split but lost time in the penultimate sector to finish fourth, while Puchner struggled in the mid-section and came fifth. Saturday's surprising runner-up Magdalena Egger (AUT/Head) took the early lead with bib No.4 and ended up in seventh.

With two Downhill races in the books, attention now turns to Sunday's Super G, a discipline in which Vonn says she has been going better in training than in Downhill, and in which Mikaela Shiffrin (USA/Atomic) is expected to race.

That opens up the tantalising prospect of the two most successful women's ski racers of all-time competing in the same World Cup race for the first time since 2019, a Super G in Cortina d'Ampezzo that Shiffrin won.

Breezy Johnson also had a strong day, finishing in fourth place. Johnson, the downhill World Champion, knew what she needed to do in order to be close to the top skiers and she performed. Johnson was pushing her limits and ended up just shy of the podium. Plus it was an exciting day for Bella Wright who ended up in 13th - one of her top performances in over a year. It was also Johnson's 100th World Cup start.

“I feel good. I've been struggling a lot the last few days, and to get out of the start today and yesterday was a pretty big victory for me,” said Johnson. “I love the World Cup. I love racing. It's a gorgeous day. So great day to hit 100 and keep going from here.”

Finally, the depth of the team still held strong with six girls in the top 30. Jackie Wiles in 20th, Keely Cashman in 21st, Allison Mollin in 22nd (also securing bibbo). Tricia Mangan and Haley Cutler in 32nd and 36th.

“I was a little bit more on the rowdy side today, and risked some things,” said Wright. “So I think it was really good attitude.”