LAKE LOUISE, Alta. Air Force 1 Low Utility Pas Cher . -- Germanys Maria Hoefl-Riesch returned to the top of the podium at Lake Louise with a victory in a World Cup womens downhill Friday. Hoefl-Riesch won a pair of downhills at the Alberta resort in 2010 before Lindsey Vonn of the U.S. went on a run of seven straight wins on the mountain. But the American ski star was tentative. She finished well back in 40th in her first race since crashing and injuring her right knee at the world championship in February. Hoefl-Riesch was fastest in the final training run for Fridays downhill and carried her pace into the race. "Since the very first time when I came here at the age of 18 or 19, I was always skiing good here and also had some wins and some podiums," Hoefl-Riesch said. "The last two years were a little bit difficult because the year before I was winning two races and one second. Last year and the year before was not perfect, but now it seems its really good for me again. Its great that I had such a good run and finally went back to the podium here. Hoefl-Riesch posted a winning time of one minute 56.03 seconds on a clear, but bitterly cold day. Marianne Kaufmann-Abderhalden of Switzerland was .70 seconds back in second and Elena Fanchini of Italy was third in 1:57.23. A second downhill is scheduled for Saturday followed by a super-G on Sunday. Larisa Yurkiw of Owen Sound, Ont., was Canadas lone racer and she delivered a career-best seventh. Yurkiw was 51st in the start order and was initially tied for eighth with Stefanie Moser of Austria when the Canadian crossed the finish line. The disqualification of Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein in fifth bumped them up the rankings. The result was a triumph for Yurkiw, who was dropped from the Canadian ski team after last season. The 25-year-old raised about $150,000 on her own to fund her summer ski camps in Europe and pay for her own coaching and training expenses. Yurkiw embarked on the ambitious plan to find deep-pocketed sponsors because she wasnt ready to give up on her dream of competing in the 2014 Winter Olympics. She wasnt able to race in the 2010 Winter Games because of a catastrophic knee injury suffered just a few weeks before the opening ceremonies. Yurkiw needs one more top-12 result to meet Alpine Canadas criteria for nomination to the Olympic team. "Today feels like a dream," Yurkiw said. "I had this number seven in my head for some reason all day. When I came down in eighth I forgot about it and then someone mentioned I moved up one. "I was thinking riding up the chair that the pressure is so high, but finally I can say Im doing a good job of staying focused on the things that matter and the things that will make me fast. That part Im really proud of. "I always admired people who were able to perform under pressure and Im really happy I feel like I joined the club." Lake Louise is nicknamed "Lake Lindsey" because Vonns 14 victories here are more than any other skier at one venue. The reigning Olympic champion has charged through trials and tribulations to some of those victories, but she lacked her characteristic aggression Friday. "I was definitely very nervous having my first race in 10 months," Vonn said. "I was really optimistic that I could come down and first race right out of the blocks win. It was wishful thinking, but might as well shoot for the best. "I was just too nervous. I was really tight and I skied that way. I wasnt in a really deep tuck and pushing the line where I could have. I just kind of skied it. Thats not my style and not how I attack a race. "I think tomorrow is going to be a whole other story. Im going to be much more relaxed and hopefully more confident and able to ski more aggressively and more like myself." Vonn tore ligaments in knee and broke a bone in her lower leg when she crashed in the super-G at the world championships in Schladming, Austria. She partially tore a ligament in her surgically repaired knee while training in November, which kept her out of the first downhill race in Beaver Creek, Colo. Hoefl-Riesch and Vonn are friends as well as rivals. The German thought Vonn felt confident because Vonn had skipped the last training run. "Of course, its not an easy situation for her," Hoefl-Riesch said. "She wants to keep the season going and take a chance for the Olympics. Of course, she needs to do races. "I hope that she can get more confident for her knee. I spoke to her and she said her knee was kind of bothering her. Difficult situation for her definitely." But when Vonn was asked after the race how her knee felt, she replied "fine." The temperature was minus 25 for the race, but windchill pushed it to minus 31. The race was an hour late starting because of a pair of 30-minute delays. The first was to allow the temperature to rise a degree or two. The second was because the resorts snow guns created ice fog over the upper sections of the course. The racers had to wait for it to dissipate. Hoefl-Riesch had just got on the chairlift to the start hut when she heard of the delay. Rather than freeze at the top of the mountain, she stopped in at one of the lift houses to stay warm and passed the time chatting to a lift worker. "I was talking to the lift guy, who was from New Zealand," she said. "It was an interesting conversation." Nike Air Force 1 07 Soldes . The United States clinched the final berth into the Ford Worlds, March 28-April 6 at Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, on Saturday in Blaine, Minn. Air Force 1 Basse Noir . The win puts Arsenal four points clear of Everton in fourth place with two games to play in the Premier League, a position which would qualify the club for Europes top competition for the 17th straight year. http://www.siteairforce1pascher.fr/ . With the team he supported as a child on the verge of reaching the Champions League semifinals for the first time in 19 years, Ba instead scored the goal that knocked them out.MELBOURNE, Australia -- John Isner fired 23 aces in a match which had no service breaks to beat Lu Yen-hsun of Taiwan 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7) in the final of the ATPs Heineken Open in Auckland on Saturday. Isner, ranked No. 14, won his eighth career singles title and took the title in New Zealand for the second time after his victory in 2010. The match was similar to Isners quarterfinal victory over fifth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber which went to three sets, all tiebreaks and contained no breaks of serve. Isner played six tiebreaks in 10 sets at the tournament and won five. The third-seeded Isner, playing with a right ankle injury he picked up at the Hopman Cup the previous week, took a crucial minibreak to open the first set tiebreaker. In the second tiebreaker, he rallied from 3-0 down and closed with an ace on his third championship point. "This match was very tight as every match Ive played this week was very tight," Isner said. "I needed every bit of it to come out on top. "Ive spent a lot of time on this court this week but as each match progressed I was getting more and more comfortable." Isner heads into the Australian Open with a question mark hanging over his fitness because of his injured ankle. He has drawn a qualifier in the first round. "Id like to thank my chiropractor because I had a bit of a banged-up ankle coming in here and he spent tireless hours working on me," he said. "Without him I wouldnt have been able to take this court." In the final of the Kooyong Classic exhibition event, Japans Kei Nishikori joined his coach Michael Chang as a tournament chaampion with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Tomas Berdych. Air Force 1 07 Pas Cher. Nishikori, seeded No. 16 at the Australian Open, was watched in the stands by former French Open champion Chang, a three-time winner at the Melbourne venue in 1995-97. Nishikori is drawn to face Australias Marinko Matosevic in the first round of the Australian Open. "It wont be an easy first match, and its not easy to play an Australian," Nishikori said. "But if I can play like I did today, I have a big chance to win." In the WTA event at Hobart, Spanish qualifier Garbine Muguruza defeated Klara Zakapalova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-0 to claim her first singles title. The 20-year-old Muguzura, who did not drop a set from the qualifiers to the final, joins 2012 champion Mona Barthel as the only qualifiers to win the Hobart event. Muguruza, ranked 58th, beat second-seeded and Wimbledon semifinalist Kirsten Flipkens in the quarterfinals, while Zakapalova defeated top-seeded and former U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur in the semis. Muguruza won the opening set when she broke Zakapalovas service in the 10th game. The 20-year-old Muguruza didnt play after Wimbledon last year after due to right ankle surgery, and the recovery took longer than expected. "I started to play on a chair, and then it was a little bit more until I was like normal," she said. "I didnt expect to win a lot of matches in the second tournament of the year but I just know that Id worked so hard before. I was like a big bull." The Venezuelan-born Muguruza has a first-round match against Kaia Kanepi of Estonia at the Australian Open. ' ' '