Complications from a broken arm suffered in a training crash at Copper Mountain last November continue to cost Vail’s Lindsey Vonn, who missed a gate and failed to finish Tuesday’s world championships super-G in St. Moritz, Switzerland, after losing her grip on her pole.
Vonn suffered nerve damage with the broken humerus in her right arm, which left her right hand nearly useless for weeks and forced her to miss more than a month of the World Cup season. Some of the strength and feeling has returned, but not enough to grip her ski pole tightly. After she lost the grip on her pole, which remained attached by her pole strap, she tried to regain it while racing at approximately 60 mph.
“I stayed on my feet, so that was the important thing,” said Vonn, who avoided skiing into a nearby fence. “I’m definitely disappointed about today. I lost my pole, and I just kind of lost my concentration there for a minute. Then I tried to go too straight to make up for the time I lost, and that was a bad tactic because I went too straight over the roll and had no chance to make the gate.”
Bode Miller served as race analyst for NBC Sports, which live streamed the race at 4 a.m. Denver time.
“When her hand hits the snow, it gets popped out,” Miller said. “We saw that distraction. She just never got her head back in there. She was messing around, trying to get her pole back, and then when she got it back, immediately out of the course.”
Vonn said she might have to secure her pole with duct tape for the foreseeable future because of the limited use of her hand.
“I try not to let it affect me but it definitely is difficult sometimes – when I try to do my hair or do simple things,” Vonn said. “If I have a large water glass, I can’t quite get my hand around it. But in general it’s fine, just something I have to deal with. I just hope that it gets better. I don’t really want to be like this forever.”
Nicole Schmidhofer of Austria won the gold medal with Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein taking silver and Lara Gut of Switzerland claiming bronze.
Vonn came to St. Moritz planning to do the super-G, combined and downhill. The downhill on Sunday is still in her plans, but she may have to rethink Friday’s combined (downhill and slalom) because racing slalom with her compromised grip could be problem.
“I felt confident in the start, I wasn’t nervous, I was ready and attacked,” Vonn said. “Sometimes it just doesn’t work. That’s ski racing. I can’t let it get me down. I just have to keep focusing on tomorrow and try to build my confidence and try to get the timing for the downhill right and I think I’ll be in good shape for Sunday.”
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