Breakout star Lauren Macuga and comeback queen Lindsey Vonn made it a classic Sunday for the United States ski team in St. Anton, Austria.

Macuga’s first World Cup race win — in a super-G where the 40-year-old Vonn impressed again in fourth — was no surprise to ski watchers who saw the 22-year-old American’s fast-improving results.

Maybe now sponsors will catch up with a racer from what shapes to soon be the first family of the extended U.S. sk team.

Macuga raced with speed and style Sunday wearing a helmet that has a question mark on the front where a sponsor’s brand could be.

The American was almost flawless on a course that flummoxed veterans such as Federica Brignone and Lara Gut-Behrami, who made errors and knew crossing the finish line their times would not hold up.

Macuga won by 0.68 seconds — a huge margin in super-G — ahead of Stephanie Venier of Austria, with Brignone 0.92 back in third. Olympic champion Gut-Behrami was 1.26 back in fifth.

Vonn, in the third race of her surprise comeback season, trailed Macuga by 1.24 yet no one was faster down the steep middle section of the course.

“It was a crazy run today,” Vonn said. “I’m also really proud of my teammate Lauren. It’s really nice to be part of such a fun team. It’s great to see another American on top of the podium.”

Macuga is in her third full season on the World Cup tour and had six top-10 finishes before Sunday, including fourth in a downhill last month at Beaver Creek, Colo.

“I know that I had the potential to ski on the podium,” she said. “I knew it was there, I didn’t think it would be today.”

Her sisters also are on U.S. teams: Sam Macuga is a ski jumper and Alli Macuga skis moguls on the freestyle team.

Swiss star Marco Odermatt is almost unbeatable in World Cup giant slaloms — and especially at his home classic race.

Odermatt skied at his limit in the second run to rise from third place and win at Adelboden, Switzerland, for the fourth straight year.

It was the 15th straight World Cup giant slalom since February 2023 that Odermatt has won when he completed the race. He skied out in three others.

Victory again denied his teammate Loïc Meillard, the first-run leader who finished 0.20 seconds back without making any major mistakes.

The United States got a bronze medal in the team luge relay in Altenberg, Germany. Latvia’s team was first in that race. Germany was second.

The Americans — Farquharson and Jonny Gustafson handling singles, plus the doubles teams of Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa, along with Chevonne Forgan and Sophie Kirkby — was third.

GOLF

Nick Taylor of Canada delivered another theatrical finish, this time chipping in for eagle on the 18th hole to get into a playoff at the Sony Open and winning with a superb pitch that set up birdie to defeat Nico Echavarria.

Taylor never looked like a winner at Waialae in Honolulu, especially after missing two short birdie chances down the stretch. That changed all so suddenly when his eagle chip from 60 feet rolled in on the par-5 closing hole for a 5-under 65.

Echavarria joined him with a great bunker shot for a tap-in birdie on the 18th and a 65. They finished at 16-under 264.

Taylor has five PGA Tour titles and won the last three in a playoff. He had to hole a 10-foot birdie putt on the 18th to stay alive. Playing the 18th again, Taylor went from a fairway bunker to 46 yards short of the cup. His pitch was close to perfect, landing on the front of the green and rolling with the grain and wind to just inside 3 feet.

Echavarria was just on the collar at the back of the green, but his 40-foot eagle putt came up 7 feet short and he missed the birdie putt.

The victory sends Taylor to the Masters again, a big perk after a dismal end to last season. He had won the Phoenix Open with clutch putts in a playoff last year. His best playoff win was at home in the Canadian Open in 2023, when he made a 70-foot eagle putt.

JURISPRUDENCE

An ex-cop fired from his job as an investigator at the U.S. Center for SafeSport for allegedly stealing money seized at a drug bust has been arrested again, this time charged with rape and sex trafficking.

Jason Krasley, a former police officer in Allentown, Pa., was arrested Friday and charged with felony rape and involuntary sexual servitude for crimes allegedly committed while he was on the force between 2011 and 2015, according to a news release from the district attorney’s office.

Krasley left the department in 2021 and went to work for the SafeSport Center, which fired him last year shortly after learning he’d been arrested for allegedly stealing $5,500 from a drug bust he helped conduct while on the force.

The new arrests resurface the question of how Krasley was able to maneuver through what officials at the center say is a robust vetting process it uses to hire people tasked with uncovering sensitive information regarding sex-abuse cases.

The Denver-based center was established in 2017 to deal with sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports from the elite level down to the grassroots. As of late last year, it had 36 people on its investigation team; it has tapped into police forces, where some detectives deal with similar cases, to fill some of those positions.

“I am appalled that a former staff member has been accused of such heinous acts in his previous role as a police officer,” SafeSport CEO Ju’Riese Colon said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press. “We hold all staff to the highest standard because safeguarding athletes is our utmost priority.”

The AP has learned of two cases Krasley handled — one of which was assigned to another investigator after his arrest on the theft charges. In the other, the claimant asked if her case could be reopened in the wake of the arrest and was told in an email from a SafeSport employee that “those matters are already being reviewed prior to the requests and media attention.”

Colon said the center has commissioned a third-party audit of cases Krasley handled. “We are working with subject matter experts to determine what additional actions should be taken in light of the new allegations,” she said.

Krasley faces additional counts of felony kidnapping, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and intimidation of a witness, in addition to misdemeanor criminal coercion.

Krasley’s attorney, James Burke, told lehighvallleylive.com that Krasley “absolutely denies the allegations.”

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Notre Dame offensive tackle Anthonie Knapp was ruled out of the College Football Playoff championship game against Ohio State with an ankle injury, but coach Marcus Freeman said right guard Rocco Spindler is on track to play.

Buckeyes cornerback Denzel Burke, who has been dealing with what coach Ryan Day called an “upper extremity issue,” will be available against the Irish in Atlanta on Jan. 20.