Third wins for "Nici" Schmidhofer in Lake Louise

Intense snowfall overnight gave work to the course crew of the Lake Louise World Cup, but nothing the hardworking sleddogs cannot handle and today's second downhill race of the season kicked off from the top of the World as planned.

After a 7th place yesterday, last year Downhill Globe winner Nicole Schmidhofer has been able to pull out a strong run again today and claimed the top spot of the podium. The Austrian ski star won her first World Cup races in Lake Louise last year with two consecutive victories, and with today's race, she can add the third victory to her Palmares.

"Nici" was joined on the podium by Mikaela Shiffrin in second who nearly grabbed her 63rd career world cup win, finishing just 0.13 seconds behind. The American added another podium finish on the course where she won her first downhill race in 2017 and first super-G race in 2018.

Since the beginning of the season, there have been no races without surprises, and today is Francesca Marsaglia's turn. The Italian skier surprised herself a bit by skiing a clean run onto her career-first speed podium.

All three ladies and the rest of the field return to Lake Louise tomorrow for another downhill race ahead of Sunday's super-G.