Lindsey Vonn sets downhill record with Cortina victory

Lindsey Vonn celebrates her record-breaking downhill victory at Cortina

Lindsey Vonn set a new record for the number of women's World Cup downhill victories when she won her 37th race at Cortina d'Ampezzo.

The American's win - her 10th at the Italian resort - took her past Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proell, whose mark she had equalled when she triumphed at Altenmarkt-Zauchensee in Austria earlier this month.

The victory was also Vonn's 74th on the World Cup circuit, edging her closer to Swedish legend Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup victories.

"It's pretty awesome," Vonn said. "I was really nervous today, actually. I've won so much here, and there was just a lot of pressure. The more people talk about records the harder it is to break them.

"So I tried to stay focused on my skiing, and I thought I skied really well on the top. I went a little bit too straight on the bottom. But I was able to pull it off."

The 31-year-old clocked a time of one minute 37.01 seconds down the 2.6km-long Olympia delle Tofane course in clear, cold conditions.

Vonn finished well clear of her rivals at Cortina

Canada's Larisa Yurkiw took second place, 0.28sec behind Vonn, with Lara Gut of Switzerland completing the podium at 0.67sec, while Liechtenstein's Tina Weirather was fourth at 1.01sec.

Gut retained the overall lead in the World Cup standings with 810 points compared to Vonn's 800.

Vonn holds a 122-point lead over Yurkiw in the downhill standings, having won four of the five downhills this season.

Meanwhile, Italian Peter Fill won the World Cup's most prestigious race, the Kitzbuhel downhill, in a race of high drama that saw three favourites crash out.

Fill, 33, clocked 1:52.37sec down the Streif course, which was slightly shortened because of high winds and snowfall.

Swiss pair Beat Feuz and Carlo Janka rounded out the podium in Austria at 0.37 and 0.65sec respectively.

Peter Fill of Italy on his way to victory in the men's downhill at Kitzbuhel

Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and Hannes Reichelt of Austria tumbled out at the Hausberg Kompression turn and landed in the safety netting, and Svindal's season is over after he suffered torn knee ligaments in his fall.

Another Austrian, Georg Streitberger, also tore ligaments in his right knee after going out on the same spot.

Organisers eventually decided to stop the event after the first 30 had raced, citing safety concerns, but the result stood.