Uvex team results in Vancouver

A first Olympic gold for Lindsey Vonn. The favorite did what everyone expected: she won the gold medal for the downhill skiing. The 25-year-old athlete from Minnesota was 0.56 of a second ahead of her teammate Julia Mancuso and 1"46 ahead of Austria’s Goergl, in a race she dominated from start to the finish, always first at all the interval points.

The World Cup champion arrived at Whistler with an injury to her right shinbone and there were doubts about whether she would race ("I don’t know if I can compete", she said last Thursday). But delays for bad weather gave her some time to recover and she did not even want her husband Thomas near the starting gate as usual. "I can do it", she said to him over the radio. It was a difficult, fearful descent, with several tumbles that had the ten-thousand-plus spectators holding their breath. Paerson crash landed after misjudging the last jump and terrifyingly flew for 60 meters. Gisin was also catapulted into the air on the last jump but was unhurt, and Romanian Miklos was taken away by helicopter after crashing into the safety nets.