Vonn completes first official training run since February

Reigning Olympic downhill champion Lindsey Vonn finished her first official training run since February on Wednesday as she timed 1min 59.53secs in the downhill. The 29-year-old says she is confident she will be able to ski in February at the Sochi Winter Olympics despite tearing a right knee ligament in a training crash last month, reinjuring the same knee that was operated on last February after a fall at the World Championships in Austria. Vonn was the 10th of 67 women scheduled to make a training run Wednesday at Lake Louise. Her speed rank went from sixth-best at the first interval to second-best at the fourth but when she crossed the finish line she ranked fifth of 10 who had completed the 3,067-metre course in cold and sunny conditions. US Ski Team doctors gave Vonn approval on Tuesday to take part in training runs Wednesday and Thursday at Lake Louise, with a final decision on her participation in races Friday through Sunday to be made after her last training run. Downhill races are planned for Friday and Saturday with a Super-G on Sunday. Vonn has won 14 times at Lake Louise, including a sweep of all three race titles in each of the past two years. Vonn has finished in the first three in 20 of the past 25 World Cup races on the Canadian slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Vonn had been planning to return last week in the United States before her latest spill. Vonn, the girlfriend of 14-time major golf champion Tiger Woods, won World Cup overall titles in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012 and with 59 race wins she is three shy of matching the women's World Cup record owned by Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proell. Source: AFP