Super-G Specialist Suter Wins First Downhill

Austria`s Andrea Fischbacher was second while American Lindsey Vonn and Italy`s Nadia Fanchini were joint third.

Swiss Fabienne Suter won her first World Cup downhill race in the Bulgarian resort of Bansko on Friday.

The 24-year-old, who had only one top 10 result in the discipline before, proved the course was more suited to super-G specialists like her, outclassing the rest of the field in one minute and 45.68 seconds.

Suter, who won two super-G's in Sestriere and Bormio last season, bagged her third World Cup victory with a lead of 1.15 seconds over Austria's Andrea Fischbacher.

Like Suter, world championship super-G bronze medallist Fischbacher had also shone in practice for the longer discipline.

Favourite Lindsey Vonn, still hampered by a hand injury sustained opening a bottle of champagne at the world championships and feeling some pain in her back after a crash in practice, managed to grab third place, 1.24 off the pace.

The downhill and super-G world champion was tied with Italy's Nadia Fanchini.

American Vonn maintained her comfortable lead in the World Cup overall standings.

Anja Paerson, who had complained before the race that the course was too narrow, did not make it to the bottom in another poor showing.

The Swede had also been forced out of her previous race, last weekend's super-G in Tarvisio, and she has lost ground in the race for the overall crystal globe where she is third.

A second downhill is taking place on Saturday in Bansko, the first Bulgarian resort to host World Cup races.

RESULTS of women's World Cup downhill in
Bansko, Bulgaria on Friday.
  1.  Fabienne Suter (Switzerland)        1min 45.68secs
  2.  Andrea Fischbacher (Austria)        1:46.83
  3.  Lindsey Vonn (U.S.)                 1:46.92
  3.  Nadia Fanchini (Italy)              1:46.92
  5.  Lara Gut (Switzerland)              1:47.10
  6.  Tina Maze (Slovenia)                1:47.15
  7.  Marion Rolland (France)             1:47.97
  8.  Fraenzi Aufdenblatten (Switzerland) 1:48.02
  9.  Marie Marchand-Arvier (France)      1:48.16
10.  Daniela Merighetti (Italy)          1:48.21
11.  Renate Goetschl (Austria)           1:48.39
12.  Elisabeth Goergl (Austria)          1:48.58
13.  Julia Mancuso (U.S.)                1:48.60
14.  Wendy Siorpaes (Italy)              1:48.74
15.  Martina Schild (Switzerland)        1:48.82
16.  Andrea Dettling (Switzerland)       1:48.88
17.  Chemmy Alcott (Britain)             1:48.90
18.  Maria Riesch (Germany)              1:48.92
19.  Daniela Ceccarelli (Italy)          1:48.96
20.  Carolina Ruiz Castillo (Spain)      1:49.41
21.  Nadia Styger (Switzerland)          1:50.04
22.  Nicole Schmidhofer (Austria)        1:50.21
23.  Kelly Vanderbeek (Canada)           1:50.52
24.  Stefanie Koehle (Austria)           1:50.56
25.  Aurelie Revillet (France)           1:50.90
26.  Ingrid Rumpfhuber (Austria)         1:51.02
27.  Regina Mader (Austria)              1:51.07
28.  Gina Stechert (Germany)             1:51.33
28.  Stacey Cook (U.S.)                  1:51.33
30.  Johanna Schnarf (Italy)             1:51.39