Siebenhofer completes WC downhill double

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy: Former Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn finished ninth on Saturday in her second race since returning from a knee injury, as Austria’s Ramona Siebenhofer made it two World Cup downhill wins in as many days.

The 34-year-old American, wearing knee braces, improved on her 15th place in Friday’s race at Cortina d’Ampezzo. Siebenhofer, 27, chalked up just the second World Cup win of her career as she clocked 1min 36.22sec to finish four hundredths of a second ahead of compatriot Nicole Schmidhofer, who retains the lead in the World Cup downhill standings.

Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia rounded out the placings, 0.51sec behind Siebenhofer, with Vonn crossing the line 1.36sec adrift in her final downhill race in the Italian Dolomites resort. “I didn’t feel great, but it’s not going to get a lot better, I just have to deal with it,” said Vonn.

“It’s a little bit rougher than I expected. Today was a step in the right direction,” said Vonn, who has won a record 12 times down the Olimpia delle Tofane course — six downhill and six Super-G.