. world ski news : Vonn wins 2nd gold at World Ski Championships - 09 February 2009 - 15:37
VAL D'ISERE, France (CNN) -- American ski queen Lindsey Vonn claimed her second gold medal of the World Championships at Val d'Isere on Monday when she destroyed rivals to triumph in the downhill.
The 24-year-old was favorite to take the title following her opening-day success in the super-G and she proved too hot for teenage runner-up Lara Gut of Switzerland and Italy's Nadia Fanchini who took bronze.
"My goal was to win the world downhill and I'm thrilled at pulling through despite the hard conditions," Vonn told the event Web site. "Today was a dream come true for me."
Vonn clocked one minute 30.31 seconds with Gut 0.52 seconds adrift to bank her second silver of the championships in an event put back from Sunday because of a snow storm.
Leader in the overall World Cup standings, Vonn could already have completed a medal hat-trick at the championships.
Officials ruled that she missed a slalom gate in the super combined on Friday --a decision that denied Vonn a silver medal that was then awarded to Gut.
Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway took the men's super combined on Monday ahead of France's Julien Lizeroux with Croatian Natko Zrncic-Dim third.
Svindal finished the morning's downhill 0.04 seconds ahead of Bode Miller -- the American failed to finish the floodlit slalom section when he straddled a gate -- and won with a combined time of two minutes 23 seconds.
Lizeroux snatched second, 0.90 seconds behind, after recording the best slalom run, while Svindal's success was fitting reward having battled back from a huge crash at Beaver Creek in 2007.
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