Maria Riesch has ended Lindsey Vonn's unbeaten run in World Cup downhills this season with victory in St Moritz on Saturday.
German scores first downhill win since 2006 to end rival's World Cup stranglehold
Maria Riesch has ended Lindsey Vonn's unbeaten run in World Cup downhills this season with victory in St Moritz on Saturday.
The German slalom World Champion's win was her third career success in downhill competition and came more than three years after her last at Lake Louise.
Vonn had held the edge in the World Cup standings after scoring a clean sweep of the first five downhills of the winter.
However, Riesch kept alive her chances thanks to an unexpected result on a course which had appeared to suit her American friend and rival better.
Riesch won in a time of one minute 41.31 seconds to finish ahead of France's Ingrid Jacquemod and Switzerland's Fabienne Suter.
Jacquemod was 0.79 seconds behind for her third podium of the season, while Suter finished 0.96s adrift.
Vonn lost her pace halfway down the Corviglia slope and had to be content with fifth place behind Sweden's Anja Paerson.
In the overall World Cup standings, Vonn now leads Riesch by 61 points on 1,211, while Paerson lies third, on 886 points.
Vonn, Riesch and Paerson will battle it out again in a super-G on Sunday before turning their attentions to the Winter Olympics, which start in Vancouver on February 12.
