\u201cEvery time they talk bad about me, it makes me stronger\u201d
With perfect snow, blue skies and not a wisp of wind, the conditions were idyllic in St. Moritz. Mirjam Puchner (AUT\/ Atomic) set the early pace with a balanced and controlled run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vonn, though, has meant business all week, clocking the fastest time in training. Aggressive from the gate, it all came together on the bumpier mid-section. Tidy and precise on every turn, she carried massive speed into the lower section.<\/p>\n
Vonn was so quick she could barely stop, ploughing into the barriers at the bottom as she wildly punched the air. It was seven years, eight months and 29 days since her last victory (at Are in 2018).<\/p>\n
She attributed the moment to a perfect combination of factors. \u201cWe worked really hard, not just me but my whole team, from the equipment, physical training, and also we hired Aksel [Lund Svindal, as coach],\u201d she said. \u201cSystematically, every single thing I could do to be faster, I did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I was skiing fast, but you never know until the first race, and it was a little faster than I expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt nervous, it\u2019s always tricky, the first race of the season. Aksel said at the start: \u2018Sofia [Goggia] lost a lot of time at the start but she was able to make it up at the bottom\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking OK, well, I just need to ski the pitch really clean and carry my speed down. I still didn\u2019t ski the best that I could have on the compression on the bottom, but I tried to be dynamic, clean, like I\u2019ve been in training, and it was pretty solid.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I had a great run but I also made some mistakes, so I\u2019m excited for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
That mid-section was key, she believes. \u201cAksel said it the other day in the press conference, people think I\u2019m a really good glider, but I\u2019m actually a better turner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started off as a slalom skier. And I try to be clean and generate power. That\u2019s where I\u2019m skiing well now, in the turns.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t know she had won, initially: \u201cI was stuck in the banner\u201d. But as soon as she did, the American knew she had justification for her comeback. Vonn loves to prove doubters wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the people who didn\u2019t believe in me, I have to thank them, because it gives me a lot of motivation,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m surprised people haven\u2019t figured that out by now. Every time they talk bad about me it makes me stronger, better, more motivated. So I\u2019d love for people to keep coming at me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEvery time they talk bad about me, it makes me stronger\u201dWith perfect snow, blue skies and not a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,52949,2643,416,52948,82,52950],"class_list":["post-340615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-federation","tag-fis","tag-ski","tag-snowboard","tag-sports","tag-winter-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}