Lindsey Vonn has earned the bronze medal in the women’s super-G, finishing behind Tina Maze of Slovenia and Andrea Fischbacher of Austria, respectively.

From FOXSports.com”

While many of the pre-race favorites struggled with a sharp right turn midway down, Vonn made it through that section without a problem. But then she lost nearly half a second on the bottom section of the course.

“Once I got past those difficult sections, I kind of backed off the gas pedal,” Vonn said. “I felt like I just didn’t ski as aggressively as I could have, and I think that’s where I lost the race.”

Johanna Schnarf of Italy finished fourth and Elisabeth Goergl of Austria fifth. Super-combined winner Maria Riesch of Germany was eighth and Swedish standout Anja Paerson was 11th.

It’s the first Alpine victory at these games for Austria, which entered the race with only Goergl’s downhill bronze. At the 2006 Turin Games, Austria won 14 medals — four of them gold.

Fischbacher was reduced to tears after placing fourth in the downhill, finishing only three-hundredths of a second behind Goergl.

This was the third of Vonn’s five events at the Winter Olympics. She previously won gold in the downhill, but fared poorly in the super-combined after crashing. Here next race is giant slalom on Wednesday.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Despite battling an injured right shin, American Lindsey Vonn took home the gold medal in women’s Olympic downhill on Wednesday. Downhill is the first of five races that Vonn plans to compete in during the Winter Games.

From Yahoo! Sports:

Vonn was hurt Feb. 2 during pre-Olympic practice in Austria and had hardly skied over the past two weeks.

Still, as the two-time defending overall World Cup champion and the winner of five of the six downhills this season, she was an overwhelming favorite.

Vonn increased her lead at the first three checkpoints, although she lost nearly two tenths on the bottom after getting knocked off balance as she went over a small bump just before the finish.

What’s remarkable about Vonn’s performance is not only was she injured, but due to bad whether in Whistler of the past week she and the other competitors also only received one downhill training session, which was before the race. Plus, the course was extremely bumpy so for her to still win a gold medal despite having to overcome several obstacles is impressive.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Athletically speaking, in this case. During her training run on Monday, American downhill skier Lindsey Vonn had the fastest time on the track’s upper section. Vonn is trying to overcome a bruised shin.

From FOXSports.com:

The women will ski the bottom section later Monday, following the conclusion of the men’s downhill race — the first Alpine competition at the Vancouver Games. Vonn finished in 1 minute, 30.75 seconds, which was 0.39 seconds faster than teammate Julia Mancuso.

Vonn bruised her right shin during practice in Austria on Feb. 2. She stayed off skis for more than a week, but tested the injury — with encouraging results — in an unofficial slalom training run Sunday.

The shin was a little tender Monday morning, but that was to be expected. And it didn’t seem to hurt her skiing.

“After skiing four runs of pretty good intensity slalom on salted snow, with the conditions the way they are here now, I think even if you had healthy shins, you’d probably have a sore shin today,” said Thomas Vonn, who serves as a coach and adviser to his wife. “She’s happy to be where she’s at, as opposed to where she was a couple of days ago.”

This should quell any fears that Vonn won’t compete. The United States is currently atop the leader board with eight total medals (two gold, two silver, four bronze) and Vonn’s presence should add to that count.

The women’s downhill race is scheduled for Wednesday.

Photo from fOTOGLIF