Lindsey Vonn will be taking centre stage in the early hours of Wednesday morning from the 2018 Winter Olympics. The women’s downhill is set to get going and it will be all eyes on Vonn to see whether or not she can add to the gold that she collected in the 2010 Vancouver Games. The 33 year old, who made her first Olympic appearance back in 2002 has pretty much had a tough battle for fitness for the last eight years.
Knee ligament damage kept the USA superstar out of the Sochi 2014 games, but her current form on the World Cup circuit really puts her in contention here for top honours. Vonn won back to back Downhills at the start of February in Germany which were her third and fourth titles for the season on the World Cup tour. The most recent one as well was the 79th of her career.
She is chasing down the record of 86 held by Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden and considering all of the injury problems that Vonn has had during her career, it’s a pretty astonishing amount that she has racked up. Vonn is the 19/20 outright favourite at Ladbrokes to capture the 2018 Olympic downhill gold* (betting odds taken at 6:15 p.m. on February 19th, 2018).
She has already been out on the slopes in PyeongChang where she finished tied for sixth in the Super-G. But it is the downhill which is her forte really and her chances were boosted a little bit when early this week her teammate Mikaela Shiffrin pulled out because of scheduling. Shiffrin collected the gold in the giant slalom in Pyeongchang and came home fourth in the slalom on Friday. Although Shiffrin is more at home in the slalom, she had collected three podium finish in the downhill World Cup series this season.
Who are the threats to Vonn?
That doesn’t mean that there are not going to be any challengers to Vonn in the race and the biggest one will be Italy’s Sofia Goggia. The Italian is actually the current leader in the Downhill season on the World Cup 2017/18 with one race to go. She is very consistent and she finished second to Vonn in both of the recent duels in Germany. So she looks a solid wager to get up in among the medals and if anyone is going to stop Vonn, it would be her.
Christina Weirather from Lichtenstein is going to be a threat as well. She has already collected a bronze in the Super-G in PyeongChang and she has taken three second-place finishes in the downhill in this season’s World cup as well. Overall she is not as big of a threat as the other two, but a consistent performer who has a pretty solid chance of getting herself on the board.
Austria’s Cornelia Huetter took a Downhill World Cup win in Canada in December and recently took a third behind Vonn and Goggia in Germany at the start of December. She was in Sochi four years ago and finished 24th in the Downhill but some better signs this season puts her as a decent dark horse to have a run at getting in among the medals.
Women’s Downhill Odds*
Lindsey Vonn 19/20, Sofia Goggia 7/2, Tina Weirather 9/1, Nichelle Gisin 22/1, Anna Veith 25/1, Cornelia Huetter 20/1, Lara Gut 16/1, Nicole Schmidhofer 40/1, Ragnhild Mowinckel 28/1, Viktoria Rebensburg 28/1, 50/1 bar* (betting odds taken at 6:15 p.m. on February 19th, 2018).
Women’s Downhill Predictions
If things go to form then there is going to be a 1-2 between Vonn and Goggia. There doesn’t appear to be much doubt about that. Vonn has just come back into form, peaking at the right time to go and chase down her second Olympic Gold. She has the composure and mentality to get there as well. No-one is going to push her harder than Goggia though based on current form. It just leaves things wide open then as to who would get the third podium spot. Out of the challengers, Weirather gets our nod.
