The 2010 season came with extreme reward for Vonn along with extreme pain. After a giant slalom crash early in the year resulting in a severely bruised right arm, she skied with a brace the remainder of the year. A pre Olympic training crash also resulted in a deep shin bruise and a fall in the Olympic giant slalom forced her to defend her World Cup titles with a broken finger. Goal for 2011 – defend World Cup and World Championships titles and cut back on the giant slalom crashes.
Vonn spent the spring healing her body on the red carpet with appearances at the Emmy's, Academy of Country Music Awards, Met Costume Gala, White House Correspondents Dinner and even hosted the Race to Erase MS charity event in Los Angeles. Later, during a golf event in Monterey Vonn notched a hole-in-one during only her second career 18-hole outing. Oh, and she won 2010 ESPYS for Best Female Athlete, the highest female honor in sports, and the Best Female Olympic Athlete Award. The Associated Press also named her their 2010 Female Athlete of the Year.
Following the celebrity tour, she went back to her roots hitting the gym with the vigor that made her famous with her sights set on the 2011 season that includes the World Championships at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.LINDSEY SAYS
My goal coming into the Olympics was to win one medal, and I have one gold and one bronze. I am incredibly happy and proud of those accomplishments. I gave it 110 percent; I left it all on the hill and I have no regrets whatsoever. I left the Olympics happy, because I gave it everything I have, and I’m very proud to be a part of this successful Olympic team sex appeal.
The entire season meant the world to me. If you had asked me at the beginning of the season if I'd have been able to not only win Olympic medals but defend my World Cup titles and add the combined, I would have said 'not likely.' It takes a lot of hard work, not only by me, but from the team, from U.S. Ski Team coaches, from my husband, from Red Bull and my ski company Head. It's everyone working together to make as successful a season as possible and I couldn't do it without them.
The season was awesome for our entire team. We've had some amazing successes. The U.S. is definitely a major force on the World Cup and in the Olympics and I'm really looking forward to next season and the World Championships.
FIRST TRACKS
Growing up in the Twin Cities area (in Burnsville), Vonn was on skis at two before moving into Erich Sailer's renowned program at Buck Hill. She commuted to Vail for a couple of years before the Kildow family (her maiden name) moved to Vail in the late Nineties. En route to the World Cup, she excelled at every level – Junior Olympics, Trofeo Topolino, Whistler Cup (kids 11-14), Junior Worlds, NorAms and Europa Cup.
OFF THE SNOW
Vonn is a TV darling having appeared on the NBC's Today Show, Tonight Show in addition to the Ellen Degeneres Show and Oprah. But likely the biggest TV appearance (sans Olympics) of her life was guest starring in the final episode of Law & Order, who's 20-year run ended with Vonn playing a school secretary who helps crack the case. Vonn had joked for years that she would play a "stiff" just to get a part in her favorite show. The 2010 season also saw her on the cover of Sports Illustrated (twice) in addition to hundreds of other magazine placements.
Away from the media, she's into tennis, baking and just hanging out. Future plans include having a family, but that may have to wait until after the 2015 season when her home mountain of Vail, CO hosts the World Championships. In the meantime, she'll have to settle for watching over her farm family. After winning a cow with victory in the 2005 Val d'Isere, France downhill, whom she promptly named Olympe, the heard has grown to five and also includes a goat. All reside outside of Kirchberg, Austria.
Lindsey Vonn is the winningest female ski racer in American history. Vonn grew up in Apple Valley, Minnesota and began skiing at age 2; when she was 11 she moved to Colorado with her family to train at Ski Club Vail. At age 17 she qualified for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, finishing a promising sixth in the combined event. She went on to become one of America's most celebrated skiiers, winning dozens of World Cup victories and back-to-back overall World Cup Championships in 2008 and 2009. She's had less luck in the Olympics: she was injured in practice just before the Turin Olympics of 2006 and didn't win a medal, and in 2010 she suffered a pre-Olympic shin injury. But that year she recovered to win a gold medal in the women's downhill and a bronze in the Super-G.Extra credit: She married Thomas Vonn, a former ski racer, in 2007... Vonn's fame has been helped along by her good looks; she posed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 2010.
Lindsey Vonn is a U.S Olympic Alpine Skier who was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 18, 1984. Vonn received great acclaim as a skier after her 2008 season and later during the 2010, Vancouver Winter Olympics when she won a Gold medal for the Women's Alpine Downhill event, and a bronze medal for the Women's Downhill Super G also known as the Super Grand Slalom. Controversy surrounded this second race that challenged Vonn's speed with a course allegedly designed for slower skiers.
