ZAGREB, Croatia — Lindsey Vonn of the United States crashed just five gates before the finish, and Maria Riesch of Germany won her third straight World Cup slalom race today.

Vonn hit a gate on the icy Crveni Spust course and lost her overall World Cup lead to Riesch, who finished in a combined time of 1 minute, 58.69 seconds. Vonn dropped to third in the World Cup standings, 77 points behind Riesch.

Vonn led after the opening leg and was 0.94 seconds faster than Riesch at the second intermediate time in the final run before falling. But Vonn thought she was trailing during the run.

"I wasn't sure about the time while I was skiing," said Vonn, who was not injured. "I heard 'one second' and I thought I was one second behind for sure as I've had a mistake at the top. I would have slowed down a bit had I known that I was a second ahead.

"So many things can happen in a second and your day is done."

Nicole Gius of Italy finished second, 0.44 seconds behind, and slalom world champion Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic was third.

"I didn't ski that great today and Lindsey was the strongest," Riesch said. "I was lucky she went out. Winning was just a present for me."

Riesch didn't think she had a chance of winning after completing her second run.

"I had a mistake early on and the conditions were very difficult," said Riesch, who trailed Vonn by 0.43 seconds after the opening leg.

In the overall standings, Riesch leads with 607 points, followed by Tanja Poutiainen of Finland (543), who finished seventh, and Vonn (530).

"These three wins are starting to make me nervous," Riesch said. "The expectations get really high now and a lot of people expect me to win every race."

Gius earned the fourth podium finish of her career but has yet to win a race.

Nicole Hosp of Austria, the 2007 overall champion, crashed and hurt her left knee during warmups and didn't start. She was hospitalized but the seriousness of her in jury was not immediately clear.

No Americans earned World Cup points: Vonn and Hailey Duke didn't finish their second run, Julia Mancuso was out after losing control of a ski early in her opening run, Kaylin Richardson was disqualified for a gate error and Sarah Schleper did not qualify for the final leg.