Lara Gut won Saturday's World Cup downhill at Cortina d'Ampezzo as US ski queen Lindsey Vonn crashed out.

Vonn came to grief when in a commanding position in the times in the third section at a spot where she had fallen in training the day before.

The American was quickly up on her feet, walking away unscathed.

Vonn had arrived in Italy on the back of her 77th World Cup win in the downhill at Garmisch-Partenkirchen last week in only her second race since breaking her right arm in November and fracturing her left knee last February.

Swiss skier Gut, the defending overall World Cup titleholder, edged out local hope Sofia Goggia with Slovenia's Ilka Stuhec completing the podium.

This latest success moved her to within 30 points of overall World Cup pacesetter Mikaela Shiffrin with a favourable season run in for Gut with seven speed races and two combined as against four technical events.

Slalom specialist Shiffrin is feeling the pressure and has chosen to line-up in Sunday's super-G at the resort in the Italian Dolomites to try and consolidate her lead in the battle for the Crystal Globe.

This was Gut's 23rd World Cup success, her seventh in downhill, and the second at Cortina after a super-G win in 2014.

She saw off Goggia by five hundredths of a second with Stuhec at 0.47s.

Gut made inroads in the race for the downhill title, trailing leader Stuhec by 77 points.

Saturday's race marked the return to action of Austria's Anna Veith, competing for the first time since her serious injury in October 2015. She took 19th place.

Source :AFP