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Lindsey Vonn is a two-time defending World Cup overall champion, a 22-time winner on the circuit and a two-time world champion. (Marco Trovati / Associated Press / January 30, 2009) |
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The most accomplished female U.S. Alpine skier of her generation, or maybe any other, and the personality NBC is packaging to become the Michael Phelps of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics emerged from a car outside a trendy cafe in Hollywood.
A statuesque brunet behind sunglasses, Lindsey Vonn stepped onto the street where Schwab's drugstore once stood: the Sunset Boulevard of dreams.
Yet not once during the hour she raved about the almond French toast and sipped orange juice was she approached for an autograph. No one took her picture.
"I'm just an average person," Vonn said. "I like it this way."
If things go according to script, that's about to change.
The first run toward Vancouver begins Saturday, when Vonn opens her World Cup season with a giant-slalom race in Soelden, Austria.
She turned 25 last Sunday, a world of accomplishments behind her and the great unknown waiting beyond a Soelden start gate.
"I feel like in most ways I'm ready," Vonn said over breakfast during an off-season visit to Los Angeles. "But then again, in some ways, you're never ready. I try not to think about what can happen, if I do well and what it would be like."
By any measurement other than America's, Vonn has nothing left to prove. She is the two-time defending World Cup overall champion, a 22-time winner on the circuit and a two-time world champion.
Picabo Street, the most famous name in U.S. skiing history, never won a World Cup overall title and claimed only nine event victories.
Street, though, achieved transcendent fame on an international stage in Japan by winning gold in the super-giant slalom at the 1998 Nagano Games.
It took Street years of toil to reach her mountaintop and less than two minutes to cash in.
"In ski racing, honestly, the overall title is much more coveted than Olympic medals," Vonn said.
And her point was?
"Obviously, my life goal is to win a gold medal," Vonn said.
America, if it remembers at all, recalls Vonn at the 2006 Turin Games being airlifted from a mountain in the Italian Alps after a horrific training crash on the Olympic downhill course.
Vonn, bruised but not literally broken, earned profound respect when she raced the downhill anyway, finishing eighth.
In terms of medals cache, though, it was an Olympic opportunity lost.
Medals weren't on Vonn's mind as she was tumbling so violently and helplessly down that slope her teammates in the finish area had to turn their heads when a replay was shown on the jumbo screen.
"I just think people are born to do certain things," Vonn explained. "They have a certain skill. They're very specific to one sport or one talent. It's rare.
A statuesque brunet behind sunglasses, Lindsey Vonn stepped onto the street where Schwab's drugstore once stood: the Sunset Boulevard of dreams.
Yet not once during the hour she raved about the almond French toast and sipped orange juice was she approached for an autograph. No one took her picture.
"I'm just an average person," Vonn said. "I like it this way."
If things go according to script, that's about to change.
The first run toward Vancouver begins Saturday, when Vonn opens her World Cup season with a giant-slalom race in Soelden, Austria.
She turned 25 last Sunday, a world of accomplishments behind her and the great unknown waiting beyond a Soelden start gate.
"I feel like in most ways I'm ready," Vonn said over breakfast during an off-season visit to Los Angeles. "But then again, in some ways, you're never ready. I try not to think about what can happen, if I do well and what it would be like."
By any measurement other than America's, Vonn has nothing left to prove. She is the two-time defending World Cup overall champion, a 22-time winner on the circuit and a two-time world champion.
Picabo Street, the most famous name in U.S. skiing history, never won a World Cup overall title and claimed only nine event victories.
Street, though, achieved transcendent fame on an international stage in Japan by winning gold in the super-giant slalom at the 1998 Nagano Games.
It took Street years of toil to reach her mountaintop and less than two minutes to cash in.
"In ski racing, honestly, the overall title is much more coveted than Olympic medals," Vonn said.
And her point was?
"Obviously, my life goal is to win a gold medal," Vonn said.
America, if it remembers at all, recalls Vonn at the 2006 Turin Games being airlifted from a mountain in the Italian Alps after a horrific training crash on the Olympic downhill course.
Vonn, bruised but not literally broken, earned profound respect when she raced the downhill anyway, finishing eighth.
In terms of medals cache, though, it was an Olympic opportunity lost.
Medals weren't on Vonn's mind as she was tumbling so violently and helplessly down that slope her teammates in the finish area had to turn their heads when a replay was shown on the jumbo screen.
"I just think people are born to do certain things," Vonn explained. "They have a certain skill. They're very specific to one sport or one talent. It's rare.
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