VAL D’ISERE, France (AP) — Marianne Kaufmann-Abderhalden of Switzerland provisionally earned her first World Cup victory by winning a women’s downhill on Saturday that was marked by a number of big crashes and Lindsey Vonn skiing out and then clutching her injured knee in pain.
Kaufmann-Abderhalden followed up her second-place finish in a downhill in Lake Louise this month by clocking 1 minute, 47.28 seconds to beat defending overall champion Tina Maze of Slovenia by 0.29 seconds.
Cornelia Huetter of Austria was third, 0.52 seconds back, with some lower-ranked skiers yet to finish.
Vonn, who had boyfriend Tiger Woods watching on in the finish area, seemed to suffer a setback when she lost her balance and skied off course. She didn’t fall but grimaced as she pulled up, clutching her surgically repaired right knee in a worrying sign ahead of the Sochi Olympics.
