Rebensburg wins shortened World Cup super-G

Vikgtoria Rebensburg, the Olympic champion in giant slalom, finished in 1 minute, 16.45 seconds.

Marco Trovati/AP

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) -- Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany won a shortened World Cup super-G amid heavy snow Sunday, while Lindsey Vonn struggled with the difficult conditions and lost her lead in the super-G standings to Tina Maze.

Rebensburg, the Olympic champion in giant slalom, finished in 1 minute, 16.45 seconds down the Olympia delle Tofane course. Nicole Schmidhofer of Austria was second, 0.33 seconds behind, and overall leader Maze of Slovenia took third, 0.34 back.

"Everything fit together top to bottom," Rebensburg said. "I had a good feeling and my technique was good. Sometimes we have (bad weather) in training, so we are used to that. But it's a race and you really want to push, and today I was really focused."

Vonn, who finished seventh, dropped four points behind Maze in the super-G standings after four of seven races.

Running away with the title in the overall standings, Maze increased her lead to a massive 718 points ahead of Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany, who finished 19th.

"Today was a hard battle skiing down," Maze said. "It was snowing a lot and the snow stayed on the goggles. I didn't see a lot in the last part. I was just trying to stay on line, so I'm really proud of my performance today."

Vonn's American teammates, Julia Mancuso and Leanne Smith, finished fifth and sixth.

Vonn had won the last four super-G races here and also won Saturday's downhill for her first victory since returning to the circuit from a three-week break to recover from an intestinal illness.

But the four-time overall champion was never in contention during her run, and when she reached the finish she just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

"It was difficult to punch in there today," Vonn said in a TV interview. "The snow was definitely soft and I got sucked a little bit low on the top section and I was able to make up time on the bottom, but it just wasn't enough."

Mancuso, who skied immediately after Vonn, did slightly better, and she is third in the super-G standings, 65 points behind Maze.

It was the second super-G win of Rebensburg's career. It was her 10th World Cup victory overall, with the other eight coming in giant slalom.

The snow, which began Saturday, forced organizers to lower the start by eight gates, slicing about 450 yards off the course. Still, the conditions resulted in nine racers not finishing.

The women's circuit resumes with a giant slalom and slalom in Maribor, Slovenia, next weekend.

Maze needs some rest before her home races.

"I'm not feeling 100 percent," she said. "I'm getting a little bit tired. I need one day in bed to recover."

Vonn, meanwhile, hasn't trained much GS or slalom recently. She said that a top-10 result in Maribor "would be great."