Nicol Delago earns Italy's ski team another win as home Olympics near

The Italian ski team is on a roll with less than three weeks to go before a home Olympics. And so is 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn.

Nicol Delago claimed her first World Cup victory in a downhill on home snow Saturday in Tarvisio, Italy, with Vonn in third place for her fifth podium in five downhills this season.

Val Grenier, of St. Isidore, Ont., was the top Canadian finisher in 39th place.

Grenier of Canada finishes in 39th at World Cup downhill race in Tarvisio

Delago matched Italian teammate Giovanni Franzoni, who claimed his first victory in a super-G in Wengen, Switzerland, on Friday.

The Milan Cortina Winter Games open on Feb. 6 with the women racing in Cortina d'Ampezzo and the men in Bormio.

Delago, who also led the final training session on Friday, finished 0.20 seconds ahead of Kira Weidle-Winkelmann of Germany and 0.26 ahead of Vonn.

Delago's previous best finishes were three second-place results and two third-place results. Her younger sister, Nadia, won the bronze medal in downhill at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Nadia Delago was 10th Saturday.

It was the first World Cup downhill in Tarvisio in 15 years and Vonn was one of only two athletes in the current field who had raced it before. In her six previous races in Tarvisio across downhill, super-G and super-combined, Vonn earned two wins and four runner-up finishes.

"I don't really remember the track," Vonn said. "But I do remember that the atmosphere was amazing and the people were amazing. ... And I met some fans earlier and they were singing songs about me. It was awesome. So I'm so happy to be back on the podium again under tough conditions. So it couldn't be better."

In the downhill standings, Vonn increased her advantage to 144 points ahead of Emma Aicher of