Women's Downhill
France Régine Cavagnoud achieved her dream of winning the downhill in Cortina d'Ampezzo today when she beat Austria's Tanja Schneider and Slovenia's Mojca Suhadolc by almost a 2nd. Both Schneider and Suhadolc achieved their best result in this specialty.

	Cavagnoud

The French veteran, who celebrated her first World Cup successes here a year ago, was thinking a lot about this event after injuring her knee during a downhill training run at the Championships in Vail last year. During her recovery in the hospital in Lyon and while she trained hard this summer, she had her mind set on a victory like this one.

"I was so glad to come back here and to ski down this beautiful slope earlier this week," said Cavagnoud. "I was thinking a lot about this event during my period of recovery. I wanted to come back in this great place to win once more. I'm quite proud of myself to have been able to get back in shape and to ski so well today."

This is Cavagnoud's 2nd win this season and it dramatically improved her position in the Overall World Cup standings. She is now in 3rd place, behind Austria's Renate Goetschl, only 15th today, and Michaela Dorfmeister, who crashed at mid-course.

"I wanted to come back in this great place to win once more. I'm quite proud of myself to have been able to get back in shape and to ski so well today..." — Régine Cavagnoud (FRA)

At Altenmakrt, where she skied twice among the top-10 despite some major errors, it was obvious that Cavagnoud had redeveloped a great part of her form in the speed events. She surprisingly won a giant slalom at Copper Mountain in November, but she had a hard time in downhill and super G because she could not train for these events during the fall.

	Schneider

"I was glad to win in Colorado but I was aiming for a total comeback also in downhill," she said. "I knew it would be a matter of time before getting back my best rhythm without intensive training before the season start. When I skied again at the end of August, I wanted to focus on my GS skiing. Slowly, I recovered my feelings for speed race after race.

"It was not an easy race with this visibility," Cavagnoud added, "the first skiers raced under sunshine but it was overcast for the favorites." In fact, a number of skiers were not able to ski as aggressively as expected in the cloudy conditions. Having lost so much time on the winner, Kostner was obviously afraid to take as many risks as in training. Her teammate, Lucia Recchia, wearing bib #1, was luckier and she confirmed her talent and her fast training times.

In Sunday's giant slalom, Cavagnoud will try to improve after some disappointing results in past weeks. The top-favorites in that competition are Austria's Michaela Dorfmeister, the four-time winner this winter; Anita Wachter (AUT), who remained unbeaten here from 1994 to 1996; Switzerland's Sonja Nef and Canada's Allison Forsyth.

— Patrick Lang, MountainZone.com Correspondent