Lauren Macuga’s first World Cup race win – in a super-G where Lindsey Vonn impressed again in fourth – was no surprise to those who saw the 22-year-old American’s fast-improving results.
Macuga was almost flawless on a course that caught out veterans like Federica Brignone and Lara Gut-Behrami, who made errors and knew crossing the finish line that their times would not hold up.
Macuga won by 0.68 seconds on Sunday – a huge winning margin in super-G – ahead of Stephanie Venier of Austria, with Brignone 0.92 back in third. Olympic champion Gut-Behrami was 1.26 back in fifth.
Vonn, in the third race of her comeback at age 40, trailed Macuga by 1.24 yet no one was faster down the steep middle section of the course than the former Olympic champion. Macuga stood course-side punching the air to salute her teammate’s run. Vonn smiled broadly and held her arms out wide as the racecourse commentator praised her “unbelievable” run.
Thirty minutes earlier, Macuga had crossed the line and put a hand to her mouth in delight as she saw her race-leading time. Macuga was installed in the leader’s box, wearing a bucket hat with stars and stripes, to watch Vonn start one day after her impressive sixth-place finish in downhill. Macuga had been ninth in the downhill on Saturday.
Vonn skied at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics in Macuga’s home state of Utah five months before the US team’s new star was even born – on the fourth of July.
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Macuga is in her third full season on the World Cup tour and had six top-10 finishes before Sunday, including fourth in a downhill last month at Beaver Creek, Colorado. Her sisters also are on US teams: Sam Macuga is a ski jumper and Alli Macuga skis moguls.
