Sport | Health – Whistler, British Columbia — In another twist to an already complicated relationship, the longtime skiing rivals Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso were linked in a new way during one bizarre minute of the women’s giant slalom Wednesday morning. It did not turn out well for either of them.
Vonn and Mancuso had the 17th and 18th places in the start order of the first run, which was held in a haze of fog and blowing snow that eventually forced the postponement of the conclusion of the race until Thursday. Two-thirds of the way through her first run, Vonn had a sizable lead over the eventual first-run leader, Elisabeth Görgl of Austria.
But 10 gates and about 150 yards from the finish line, Vonn’s left ski slipped sideways as she rounded a gate, which spun her around and sent her hurtling backward. She landed hard on the snow and slammed into the protective netting at the race course boundary.
At nearly the exact moment that Vonn’s race was ending, Mancuso, the defending Olympic champion in the event, pushed out of the start house.
Had Vonn’s tumble ended four or five seconds earlier, race officials might have had time to radio to the top of the mountain to prevent Mancuso from starting. Once on the course — with Vonn lying just feet from a gate — they had no choice but to interrupt Mancuso’s run, which they did by waving a yellow flag.
Mancuso skied about halfway down the course before she was stopped and sent to the bottom, where a snowmobile would take her back to the top for a rerun.
Mancuso was in tears when she reached the finish area, knowing that the time it would take to return to the start house, coupled with the deteriorating snow conditions, would most likely cause her restarted run to be slower than she had hoped. Read more »
