Winter sports | U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn leads World Cup overall standings

VAL D'ISERE, France — Lindsey Vonn of Vail, Colo., capped a successful three days with a third-place finish in a super-giant slalom that helped her to reclaim the sole lead of the overall World Cup standings, less than two months before the Vancouver Olympics.

After her victory in Friday's super combined, Vonn made mistakes in the upper part of the course Sunday, but finished strong to gain a spot on the podium. Fraenzi Aufdenblatten, 28, posted her first World Cup victory, leading Nadia Styger to a 1-2 Swiss finish. Vonn was 0.26 seconds behind the winning time of 1:26.43.

"Every race is important, especially for the overall, and for myself for building confidence for Vancouver," said the 25-year-old Vonn, who has yet to win an Olympic medal.

The first Olympic alpine-skiing medal event for women is Feb. 14.

Vonn has been on the podium in every discipline this season except giant slalom and has 581 points in the overall standings to lead second-place Maria Riesch of Germany by 50 points. Riesch was 21st in the Super-G.

"It's not looking too bad," Vonn said of her overall lead. "It doesn't really matter at this point."

Vonn leads the Super-G standings with 140 points, 16 more than Elisabeth Goergl of Austria and 24 in front of Styger.

Vonn said she might have selected the wrong skis in her attempt to post a 26th career World Cup victory.

"On the top, I missed the timing on a couple of gates. I just never really found my rhythm," she said. "On the bottom, I thought I skied better but I wasn't myself. ...

"It wasn't like I normally do it. Maybe it was a mistake to take the longer skis because the terrain made it really tight."

Other events

• It was a mixed day for U.S. men and a memorable one for the Italian squad on home snow. Local favorites Max Blardone and Davide Simoncelli finished first and second in a World Cup giant slalom in Alta Badia. Meanwhile, Ted Ligety of Park City, Utah, struggled with the grip of his skis to place seventh and Bode Miller of Franconia, N.H., failed to qualify for the second run.

Blardone had a two-run combined time of 2:35.76 for his fifth World Cup victory — all in giant slalom.

"First run, I think a lot of the guys were taken by surprise by how icy it was," said Ligety, who is recovering from stomach flu. "I for sure was. I just felt like I had no grip on the top. I changed skis for the second run — something with a little thicker edge — but I just couldn't ski clean either run, really."

• Two-time Olympic champion Andre Lange won a four-man bobsled World Cup race on his home track and American Steven Holcomb bounced back from a crash the day before to place second in Altenberg, Germany.

Lange and his team — Rene Hoppe, Kevin Kuske and Martin Putze — finished 0.76 seconds ahead of Holcomb a day after Lange won the two-man event.

Holcomb crashed in Saturday's two-man race with Justin Olsen, but the duo was eager to join teammates Steve Mesler and Curt Tomasevicz on the track.

"They are tough guys," Holcomb said.