Lindsey Vonn won the women’s Super-G title yesterday to be crowned overall World Cup champion for the third consecutive year.
The 100 points gives Vonn, the Olympic and world downhill champion, her third title as overall World Cup winner for this year. It was her 11th World Cup win of the season and the 33rd of her career to set a new US record.
“This was the dream season for me,” Vonn said. “To break the US record in World Cup wins and to get the Olympic gold in the downhill, my favorite discipline and the overall title for the third time — for me it doesn’t get much better. When you work this hard and be rewarded like this at the end of the season it feels so great.”
Despite bruising her knee after a crash in Thursday’s giant slalom, the US starlet set the fastest time down the Kadahar course, which plays host to next year’s world championships, with a time of 1 minute, 19.3 seconds.
Austria’s Elisabeth Goergl was second 0.16 seconds behind, with Swiss Nadia Styger third by 0.57 seconds, while Vonn’s main rival, Maria Riesch of Germany, was fourth to finally settle the contest for the overall title.
With just the slalom event left to come today, worth 100 points, Vonn now has 1,671 points compared with Reisch’s 1,456 in second, with Sweden’s Anja Paerson third on 1,047 and Vonn’s 215 point lead can not be caught.
As the last skier to race, Vonn led from the front and despite briefly falling behind Goergl’s earlier pace, she brought down her season in style after her downhill gold and Super-G bronze medals at last month’s Vancouver Winter Games.
■MEN’S GIANT SLALOM
AP, GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, GERMANY
Carlo Janka of Switzerland won the overall World Cup title and Ted Ligety of the US secured the giant slalom crystal globe.
Janka, the Olympic champion, won yesterday’s giant slalom to take an unassailable lead in the overall standings with one race remaining. He is now 106 points ahead of Benjamin Raich of Austria, who will finish in second place for the fourth straight year.
Janka became the first Swiss man to win the overall title since Paul Accola in 1992.
With his main rivals out of contention, Ligety completed the second run to share third place and clinch the title he also won in 2008.
Ligety led the standings and his closest rivals, Massimiliano Blardone of Italy and Marcel Hirscher of Austria, flopped in the first run. Blardone went off course and finished well behind, while Hirscher was disqualified for starting too early.
“I made some mistakes, but so did many other guys,” Ligety said. “This is a new hill, totally new course.”
Janka led after the first run and took no risks in the second heat to win in a combined time of 2 minutes, 20.87 seconds for his sixth victory of the season.
Raich finished eighth and with 100 points at stake in today’s slalom, the final race of the season, cannot overtake Janka.
Ligety was on course for the giant slalom title with his third-place finish in the first heat and raced a risk-free, uneventful second leg to secure the title.
Santiago Castro on Tuesday had an immediate impact off the bench as he scored the goal to send Bologna into the Coppa Italia semi-finals for the first time in 26 years. Bologna won 1-0 against last year’s runners-up, Atalanta BC, and are to play either holders Juventus or Empoli in the final four. Juventus are to host Empoli in their quarter-final on Feb. 26. The last time Bologna reached the semi-finals was in 1999, when they lost 4-2 to ACF Fiorentina. There were chances for both sides in a high-tempo match in Bergamo, but it was Bologna who broke the deadlock 10 minutes from
The former interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani on Thursday was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for bank and tax fraud after he stole nearly US$17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player’s bank account. Ippei Mizuhara, who was supposed to bridge the gap between the Japanese athlete and his English-speaking teammates and fans, was sentenced in federal court in Santa Ana to four years and nine months after pleading guilty last year. He was ordered to pay US$18 million in restitution, with nearly US$17 million going to Ohtani and the remainder to the US Internal Revenue Service. He was
SPEEDSKATER: Her bronze medal ended Taiwan’s run at the Asian Winter Games without a medal since the nation first participated in the second iteration in 1990 Speedskater Chen Ying-chu yesterday made history as the first athlete representing Taiwan to secure a medal at the Asian Winter Games. Competing at the HIC Speedskating Oval in Harbin, China, Chen clocked 10.510 seconds in the women’s 100m event, finishing third behind South Koreans Lee Na-hyum and Kim Min-sun, who posted times of 10.501 and 10.505 seconds respectively. Her bronze medal ended Taiwan’s drought at the Asian Winter Games since the nation first participated in the second iteration in 1990. This year’s Games mark Chen’s debut at the event. Previously excelling in roller speedskating, she won six medals at world championships before transitioning
The 40-year-old LeBron James on Thursday became the oldest player to score 40 points in an NBA game, putting up a season-high 42 in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 120-112 victory over the Golden State Warriors. James passed the record held by Michael Jordan, his idol and the only other NBA player to score 40 after his 40th birthday. “I’m old, that’s my take,” James said when asked about his latest achievement. “I need a glass of wine and some sleep, that’s what I think.” Jordan did it for the Washington Wizards just three days after turning 40 in February 2003. James is 38