Vonn’s title caps U.S. success

Americans who insist only the final scores matter might recall this Alpine ski-racing result from the 2006 Turin Olympics:

Austria 14, United States 2.

The Austrians cleaned clocks in the medal department, celebrating nightly in Sestriere with lavish victory parties that featured succulent hams and mouthwatering pastries.

Uncle Sam’s ski team, conversely, mostly raised white flags while Bode Miller mostly raised drinks.

Two years later, back in Italy, the U.S. finally provided some punch.

Friday was a benchmark day in American Alpine annals.

Lindsey Vonn, known as Lindsey Kildow at Turin when a horrific training-run crash wrecked her medal hopes, became a bookend to history when she clinched the women’s overall title after finishing 11th in slalom at the World Cup Finals in Bormio.

“I can’t even believe I am at this point in my career,” Vonn, still only 23, said on a post-race conference call.

Vonn won her crown one day after the 30-year-old Miller claimed the men’s overall title. Miller and Vonn became the first Americans to sweep the World Cup overall titles in the same season since Phil Mahre and Tamara McKinney in 1983.

“It’s great to see another generation being able to get up there and be consistently good at the top of the world,” McKinney said Friday from Squaw Valley. “Obviously skiing is not the No. 1 sport in America, but you can win from any country as long as you can have love of the sport, talent, equipment and the support crew to get it done.”

Never have three different Americans won World Cup discipline titles in the same season. This year three Americans combined to win five.

Ted Ligety, the Olympic champion in combined, rallied from the seventh place after Friday’s first run of giant slalom to wrest the race and the GS season title away from Austria’s Benjamin Raich, a double-gold winner in Turin.

Ligety said winning the World Cup was “tenfold” more important to him than winning Olympic gold because his GS event title was achieved over an entire season. Vonn also won this year’s World Cup downhill title. Miller won the World Cup combined title and came within five points of winning the downhill crown.

“It really is a historic day,” said Bill Marolt, U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn. chief executive. “I don’t think we’ve ever had this sort of result really in the history of the program.”

Julia Mancuso, the Olympic giant slalom gold medalist in Turin, has also had a solid year with six top-three finishes. She ranks No. 7 in the women’s overall with one race left. The decision to let the free-spirit Miller part ways with the U.S. ski team and race as an independent seems to have rejuvenated Miller and improved team dynamics. To prove there are few hard feelings, Marolt sent Miller a congratulatory note.

“The entire season we’ve celebrated his success,” Marolt said. “We applaud it, without question.”

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com