Are: Vonn and Mancuso ready to race

The World Cup Finals began today with women’s downhill training and Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso (in downhill and giant slalom) will be the women representing the U.S. this week.

Italian Nadia Fanchini had the fastest training time Monday, putting down her run in 1 minute, 47.17 seconds in high wind and flat light. Mancuso, who turned 25 on Monday, finished 15th, but is happy with the Are course and is looking forward to Wednesday’s downhill.

“It’s been a strange year for downhill,” she said. “We’ve had all sorts of weather and the courses have been really challenging with Val d’Isere and Bansko, but this course is great. It’s the men’s slope from the 2007 World Championships, so this is pretty new to us. It was pretty dark up there and there was a huge head wind, so speeds were pretty slow today. I feel really good on this course and am excited to close out the season here in Are.”The World Cup Finals began today with women’s downhill training and Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso (in downhill and giant slalom) will be the women representing the U.S. this week.

Italian Nadia Fanchini had the fastest training time Monday, putting down her run in 1 minute, 47.17 seconds in high wind and flat light. Mancuso, who turned 25 on Monday, finished 15th, but is happy with the Are course and is looking forward to Wednesday’s downhill.

“It’s been a strange year for downhill,” she said. “We’ve had all sorts of weather and the courses have been really challenging with Val d’Isere and Bansko, but this course is great. It’s the men’s slope from the 2007 World Championships, so this is pretty new to us. It was pretty dark up there and there was a huge head wind, so speeds were pretty slow today. I feel really good on this course and am excited to close out the season here in Are.”

Vonn is hoping the downhill race will seal her second consecutive World Cup overall title. It didn’t happen in last weekend’s slalom in Ofterschwang when she crashed and her closest overall contender, Maria Riesch, landed the slalom title and narrowed the overall point gap between the two. Still, Vonn has 1588 points and Riesch 1219 with 100 possible points in each of the four remaining races at World Cup finals. Vonn finished 19th in Monday’s training (typical for her on the first day of DH training) and Riesch finished 12th. Vonn also blamed the wind for slowing things down.

“There was a ton of wind blowing directly up the hill, so the speeds weren’t that high,” she said. “But it’s good to get on this course and to race a downhill with a lot of terrain. Some parts were pretty bumpy and the light was pretty hard. We’ll see the times getting faster tomorrow and even faster on race day.”

Vonn is also a fan of the venue, where she won two silver medals in the 2007 world championships. She will be gunning for more hardware this week – the super-G and overall titles.

“I love racing in Are. I was able to take a couple of medals home from here in 2007 at the World Championships and I’m looking forward to taking a couple of World Cup titles home this time,” she said. “It’s a great area and a really comfortable place to end the season.”

Watch the World Cup Finals live on universalsports.com beginning Wednesday at 4:30 a.m. EST with men’s downhill, followed by women’s DH at 7:20 a.m. EST.

Monday’s women’s DH training results: