Tina Maze rips the fastest run in Lake Louise training, Day 2. GEPA

LAKE LOUISE, Canada — Day 2 of women’s downhill training in Lake Louise yielded some compelling results on Wednesday. For the second day in a row, Norway’s Lotte Smiseth Sejersted cracked into the top three with the second fastest time — she was first on Tuesday. The Norwegian finished four-tenths of a second behind Tina Maze, who has already proved she’s capable of great things this season, having picked up a surprising victory in the slalom opener at Levi.

The U.S.’s Stacey Cook, twice a podium finisher in Lake Louise two years ago, ripped the fourth fastest run of the day, finishing nearly a second-and-a-half behind the leader Maze. Austria’s Ramona Siebenhoffer snuck into the third-place position wearing bib 37.

Cook said she needs to shape up through Coaches Corner and Fishnet, the turniest sections of the course, where she lost quite a bit of time in the first two days of training.

“The course was really smooth today,” said Cook. “That doesn’t happen often that this course gets smoother, so they’re doing some good work up there. I felt a bit more comfortable and tried to go a little faster in a few sections. … Yesterday, I wanted to feel the course out. When you have three training runs you have a little bit of time to play with it, and I don’t want to peak before the race.”

Another American racer who’s hoping not to peak before the race, Lindsey Vonn grabbed attention Wednesday, improving on her 18th-place performance a day earlier to finish eighth, 1.62 seconds behind Maze. Friday will be Vonn’s first race of the season and her first race since injury knocked her out of competition last year. In her return to racing in Lake Louise this week, she’s taken a patient approach, saying she doesn’t expect to really hammer it until race day.

“It went OK. I tested some things, tested some different lines, tested some different skis,” said Vonn. “Some things worked; some things didn’t. I got really, really late in the middle part of the course, so that was not fast, but I skied the technical parts really well. Definitely a lot I can improve on for tomorrow and for race day, but I think it’s a good step in the right direction.

“I definitely want to clean up the middle section,” added Vonn. “I’m not going to go 100 percent until race day. I’ll probably notch it up just a little bit. But again, there are some other things I want to try with my line.”

For the day’s fastest skier, Maze, perhaps 10 years of experience on the Lake Louise track helped make the transition from tech to speed more seamless than for most. Asked what she did to prepare for downhill racing this week, she said, “Not much. I just feel good in speed. Since I won downhill in Sochi, I feel like a downhiller. Coming here to Lake Louise, it is really important to have that feeling on the flat part, to slide good. … The new course is fun. There are some doubles that are new, but still the terrain is the same,” she said.

Another possible contender this weekend, Sejersted doesn’t quite have the experience of Maze, having only competed in the Lake Louise speed week since 2011. The Norwegian has yet to capture a World Cup podium, but has been in the hunt with seven career top 10s, four of which came last season.

“This year, I feel really good about it, and I’m really excited,” said Sejersted. “I just want to go out and have fun and not stress about anything else. I feel like that’s been the case the last few years. … I really like (the set) this year because my favorite part of the course is coming into the steep. This year, it’s a little more open, so you can actually go clean into the pitch.”

Julia Mancuso continued to enjoy her new boots on Wednesday. Her 17th-place finish wasn’t quite as competitive as her run on Tuesday (seventh), but she’ll continue to give it her best on a track that hasn’t historically been her favorite.

“It’s still definitely training,” said Mancuso. “I find it easier the first training run. The second run you try to improve in different sections and try new things. The third one is a little more important to really tighten the screws. Today, I tried to go a little wider to make the turn a little cleaner and it didn’t really work out for me.”

Alice McKennis, who finished Tuesday in fourth, got her self into trouble, approaching the nets before finishing the run near the back of the pack. She was uninjured. Fellow Americans included Laurenne Ross in 13th, Jackie Wiles in 30th, Julia Ford in 33rd, Katie Ryan in 47th and Abby Ghent in 58th.

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