Milano Cortina Games: updates from day one’s action
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Lindsey Vonn passed a key test of her damaged knee on Friday as she completed her first downhill training run, keeping alive her hopes of a fourth Olympic medal, writes Yara El-Shaboury. Skiing with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, the American clocked a time of 1min 40.33sec in her first official run in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and simply responded “yeah” when asked if “all good” by reporters.
The training was delayed for more than an hour owing to fog hanging over the Olimpia delle Tofane piste and Vonn entertained her teammates by singing along to some Usher. The Swiss team, including the reigning downhill Olympic champion Corinne Suter, passed the time by playing Yahtzee.
Italy’s Federica Brignone was the first to get all the way down the piste, with a time of 1:40.66, as she goes for a first Olympic gold after coming back from a double leg break just in time to compete.
“Some things were good, some things so-so,” Brignone said. “I’m trying to recover my leg because after skiing it’s always swollen and painful. I’m also working on my confidence because I’m still missing it.”
Jennifer Dodds said she and her partner Bruce Mouat had produced their best performances yet as the duo recorded another two wins in Friday’s round-robin matches in the mixed doubles curling competition. The pair beat Sweden 7-4 before a comprehensive 8-2 defeat of South Korea, with an end to spare in both games. “We said yesterday there were a couple of things we wanted to work on,” said Dodds. “We came out today and executed exactly what we wanted to do.”
The Team GB pair were also in a buoyant move after the American rapper Snoop Dogg asked for a photo. “We walked past and we were just kind of like ‘there’s Snoop Dogg’, a bit starstruck and we got ushered back,” said Dodds. “They said ‘he wants a selfie with you’ and we said ‘OK’. So, if Snoop Dogg’s team is reading this, can we please get the photo?”