Lindsey Vonn finishes 13th in return to World Cup downhill competition

Christine Scheyer of Austria upset the pre-race favorites to win a women’s World Cup downhill Sunday, while Lindsey Vonn placed 13th in her first race in nearly 11 months.

Not being able to push out of the start gate as usual, the American was more than half a second off the lead at the first split and finished 1.54 behind the Austrian.

“I have a little start routine with my poles and I couldn’t really do that with my right hand,” Vonn said. “I also kind of lost grip on my pole after the last jump.”

The four-time overall champion, who holds the women’s record of 76 victories, was out nursing a knee injury and a broken arm since February of last year. The fracture in her right upper arm also damaged nerves, which was still limiting mobility of her hand.

After announcing a few days ago that she had come to win, Vonn still saw the positives of her comeback race after 322 days.

“All things considered it’s about what I would expect,” she said. “I felt like I was skiing pretty well, just maybe not quite on the limit yet.”

Vonn has three weeks left, including speed weekends in Germany and Italy, to find her best form for the world championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

“That’s definitely a huge goal of mine,” she said. “For now I am happy. It’s not really a matter of results. It’s a matter of just being happy to be racing again. Of course I had higher expectations of myself but considering the conditions and the fact that we had a training run and the race today, I think it was pretty good.”

Scheyer, whose previous best was ninth in last month’s downhill in Val d’Isere, became the unusual winner of an unusual race. After heavy snowfall had canceled the program for the past three days, the mandatory training session had to be held just hours before the race.

Scheyer impressed in training as she posted the second fastest time, but went one spot better in the race. In only her fourth World Cup downhill start, she beat Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein by 0.39 seconds. Jacqueline Wiles of the United States was 0.54 behind in third for her first career podium.

Defending overall champion Lara Gut of Switzerland finished fourth, while Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia, who had won all three previous downhill races this season, came fifth.

“It’s hard to describe,” said Scheyer, who started in speed racing this season after recovering from two severe knee injuries. “I just wanted to have a good training run. After that, I was hoping for a top-10 finish.”

In her training run, Vonn held back and got out of her tuck well before finishing 2.71 seconds off the fastest time, posted by Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic.

“It was definitely getting a lot faster from the training run to the race,” Vonn said. “I had a hard time pushing the limit with the flat lights and the bumps.”

While the podium remained far out of reach for Vonn, teammate Wiles stepped in to grab her second career top-10 result.

A late starter with bib No. 26, Wiles beat Gut by 0.01 to bump the Swiss overall champion, who was sitting in third, off the podium.

“I try to always have confidence in myself,” Wiles said. “For me to be able to come out today and have a successful run the way I did, is pretty awesome.”