Swiss skier Suter wins 1st race since Olympics as chase starts for Vonn's World Cup downhill lead

SOLDEU, Andorra (AP) — Former Olympic and world downhill champion Corinne Suter won the first World Cup race since the Milan Cortina Games as the chase began Friday for Lindsey Vonn’s lead in the discipline standings.

Vonn badly injured her left leg in a frightening crash in the Olympic downhill and won't be able to add points to her seasonal tally, but the American standout still leads the way with 400 points after two wins and three more podium results.

Runner-up Emma Aicher finished fourth in Friday’s race and reduced the gap on Vonn to 94 points with three races left.

Aicher’s German teammate Kira Weidle-Winkelmann ranks third, 144 points behind Vonn, and 2018 Olympic champion Sofia Goggia trails by 160 in fourth.

A race win is worth 100 points.

Suter has no realistic chance of winning the downhill globe despite the Swiss racer’s victory Friday, the sixth World Cup win of her career, but first in downhill since a race in Germany in January 2022.

She took the world championship in 2021 and added the Olympic title the following year, but has had to deal with various injuries since, including a concussion sustained in January 2023 and a knee injury a year later.

Suter missed the first two downhills of this campaign after a pre-season training crash. She had a near-perfect run in spring-like conditions in Soldeu to beat Nina Ortlieb of Austria by 0.11 seconds.

Goggia was 0.24 behind in third.

“It took a bit longer than I thought (to win again), but I needed some time in downhill to regain my full confidence. Today is a big step,” Suter said.

Breezy Johnson, who holds the Olympic and world downhill titles, was 0.61 behind in fifth.

Double Olympic champion Federica Brignone, who returned from a broken left leg just before the Milan Cortina Games and then won gold in super-G and giant slalom, took part in a training session Wednesday but skipped training the following day and decided to sit out the race.

The Italian, who is the defending overall World Cup champion, is still considering a start in the two super-G events on the same hill this weekend.

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

Italy's Sofia Goggia speeds down the course during an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill, in Soldeu, Andorra, Friday, February. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

Austria's Nina Ortlieb celebrates at the finish area of an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill, in Soldeu, Andorra, Friday, February. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)

Switzerland's Corinne Suter arrives at the finish area of an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill, in Soldeu, Andorra, Friday, February. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)

Switzerland's Corinne Suter speeds down the course during an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill, in Soldeu, Andorra, Friday, February. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The imprisoned leader of a militant Kurdish group in Turkey on Friday urged for new legislation that would advance a peace initiative with the Turkish government in the wake of their decades‑long conflict.

The appeal by Abullah Ocalan came a year after his historic call for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to lay down its arms and dissolve itself.

His latest message, read out in parliament by a senior member of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party, followed weeks after a parliamentary committee recommended a series of reforms to support the peace efforts — including measures to reintegrate PKK members who renounce violence.

“The transition to democratic integration necessitates laws of peace,” read Ocalan's message.

“We aim to close the era of politics based on violence and to open a process based on a democratic society and the rule of law,” legislator Pervin Buldan read from the message.

“We invite all segments of society to create opportunities and take responsibility in this direction,” it also said.

The PKK has waged an armed insurgency since 1984 in Turkey that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and spilled into neighboring Iraq and Syria. The group is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

After Ocalan's Feb. 27, 2025 announcement, the PKK said in May that it would disarm and disband, ending more than four decades of hostilities.

The group later held a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq — where its fighters had long found safe havens during the insurgency — and burned dozens of weapons in a cauldron before starting to withdraw its remaining fighters from Turkey to Iraq.

Earlier this month, a multi-party parliamentary commission recommended a series of reforms, including the reintegration of PKK members who renounce violence, while stressing that legal steps should be tied to state security institutions verifying that the group has surrendered its weapons.

Among other measures, the commission also called for steps to expand freedom of expression, release older or sick prisoners and ensure that nonviolent acts are not prosecuted under anti‑terror laws.

On Friday, the pro‑Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, or DEM, also urged the adoption of such legal measures.

“The state and the executive branch are obligated to move this process forward with the seriousness and determination that matches Mr. Ocalan’s pace for a solution” DEM party co-chairman Tuncer Bakirhan said. “The responsibility now rests with the state and the executive branch.”

Ocalan, 76, has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali, off the coast of Istanbul, since 1999, after being convicted of treason. Despite his incarceration, he continues to wield significant influence over the PKK. The group initially sought an independent Kurdish state but later shifted to demands for autonomy and expanded rights in Turkey.

FILE - Youngsters hold a photograph of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the militant Kurdish group, or PKK, in Diyarbakir, Turkey, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Metin Yoksu, File)