Alpine skiing: Vonn eyes Garmisch hat-trick in Olympic warm-up

Lindsey Vonn can claim a hat-trick of downhill victories in Garmisch-Partenkirchen this weekend in the women's final World Cup tune-up before the Winter Olympics.

The US ski queen has always fared well in Garmisch, winning the downhill in both 2016 and 2017, to give her a total of seven World Cup victories on the Kandahar course.

Warm temperatures at the start of the week in the Bavarian Alps have softened the course, which saw training sessions cancelled on both Thursday and Friday.

Organisers plan a training session on Saturday, later followed by a downhill race, with a second downhill scheduled for Sunday.

Vonn, 33, picked up the 40th downhill win of her career in Cortina last month and now has 79 World Cup victories to her credit.

In doing so, she became the oldest winner of a women's World Cup downhill race.

"It is strange to have this record," Vonn told the local Muenchner Merkur newspaper.

"In my head, I don't feel so old, but physically I certainly have the feeling I have done a lot in 33 years.

"I still have the motivation to ski and the will to win, so I feel like I am 25."

Following fine-tuning in Garmisch, her main focus is the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, which open next Thursday.

The women's Olympic alpine programme starts with the giant slalom on February 12 while the downhill -- the blue-riband event -- is on February 21.

- Last chance -

Vonn won Olympic downhill gold and super-G bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

However, she missed the 2014 Sochi Games after tearing the cruciate ligament in her right knee and has said "it's all or nothing in Korea".

"This will almost certainly be my last (Olympics) and I have waited eight years for it," Vonn added.

"I think about the gold when I get up and I when I go to bed at night, so I am really looking forward to these Games."

Her career stats are all the more impressive given the lengthy list of injuries Vonn has suffered.

She severely fractured her right arm in a training crash in November 2016, having fractured her ankle the previous August, and has admitted battling depression.

Now she is within seven World Cup wins of Ingemar Stenmark's all-time alpine record of 86 victories, having already passed Annemarie Moser-Proell's mark of 62 wins to become the most successful female skier.

"If I hadn't been injured, I would have stopped (racing) at 30," Vonn admits.

"That was always my plan, but I extended my career because of the injuries... The thought of breaking the records of Ingemar Stenmark or Annemarie Moser-Proell was never in my head.

"I never thought that I could break them, but now the chance is there, so perhaps the injuries were good for me."

Vonn is currently fifth in the women's World Cup downhill rankings behind leader Sofia Goggia of Italy.

The World Cup's overall leader Mikaela Shiffrin, a slalom specialist who holds a commanding lead, is sitting out Garmisch to rest before Pyeongchang.