Almost a year before Lindsey Vonn became the first American woman to win an Olympic downhill gold medal, she passed through New York for a victory lap after winning her second overall World Cup title.
There were interviews, photo shoots and some sight-seeing. And there was a sit-down chat at Rockefeller Plaza with Dick Ebersol, the sports czar of NBC, who had found the face of the 2010 Winter Games.
If Ebersol didn't realize then that Vonn could be the star of the 2010 Winter Games, he certainly does now. The telegenic Vonn's commanding victory in the women's downhill yesterday sets her up for four more Alpine events, and she's gunning for gold in at least two of them.
"It's everything that I've worked my whole life for," said the 25-year-old from Minnesota, who happens to have posed in a bikini for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
Four years ago, Vonn's Olympic story was that of a talented young racer who crashed violently in a training run on the downhill course at the 2006 Winter Games, destroying her chances at a medal. In the four years since, she has collected some of the most prestigious trophies in her sport. But more than anything, she built up extraordinary confidence.
"To win in downhill, you have to push yourself right to the limit, then still look for more speed," says 1964 Olympic silver medalist Billy Kidd. "That's very difficult to do, psychologically, especially if you've gotten hurt. That's what makes Lindsey Vonn so amazing. She knows the pain. She knows what it's like to get hurt, and she's able to go fast anyway."
Vonn says she would be happy to go home with the one medal she collected Wednesday, but of course she is a potential winner in two more events - today's super combined and Saturday's super G. But she can never be winter's answer to Michael Phelps, the ratings-driving medal machine of the 2008 Games in Beijing.
There are just too many variables for that to happen, says Kidd.
"Michael Phelps, he deals with constants," Kidd said. "The pool is the same length, the waves are the same height, the water is the same temperature. In ski racing, the only constant is the color of the snow. Everything else is a variable. There's the course length, visibility, the surface, where the gates are, it can all change."
Before yesterday, Vonn looked like she might be teetering on the edge. The swimsuit issue hit stands the day before she arrived in Vancouver, and just when it seemed sexual politics would be the first controversy of the Games, Vonn revealed that she hadn't skied for a week because she had been nursing a debilitating injury to her shin.
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