A new season of World Cup International skiing is here. And the new season means another chance for America to again become infatuated with Lindsey Vonn, a skier who’s excellence at her sport has reached Michael Jordan level transcendence. Or say the ability of the Bears’ Devin Hester to return kicks. That’s right, it’s skiing season, do you know how to buy ski boots? Do you need a ski boot sizing chart?
Talking about skiing gives me another excuse to post pictures of the Vancouver 2010 star, skiing guru, Red Bull shill and overall gorgeous human being.
As she recently celebrated her 26th birthday, Vonn tweeted this to her 73,000+ followers
I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes yesterday it was really nice of you all and it really made my day. Thanks! xo LV :)
I wish she’d tweet me a :) or maybe even a ;) sometime. On to business, it’s a new season and according to the Associated Press, Vonn will now target her own single-season American record of 11 World Cup victories, and beyond that, set her sights on the all-time record of 14 wins in a season, set by Switzerland’s Vreni Schneider in 1988-89.
By Paul M. Banks
NBC Universal puts her athletic greatness in perspective, summarizing her amazing 2009-10 season and also who she needs to surpass in order to cement her legacy as the Red Grange of women’s skiing.
The bottom line: Though we may think of Vonn’s 2010-11 season as an encore, and one that could break records all by itself, her career still needs to be thought of as the larger work that it’s shaping into. And the accumulation of overall World Cup titles, aside from Olympic success, remains the most important measure of where she’s headed.
Taking the wider view, Vonn has already won as many consecutive overall World Cup titles (three) as some of the most celebrated names in the sport (Ingemar Stenmark, Gustavo Thoni and Phil Mahre all peaked at three straight). Furthermore, she’s now two seasons shy of tying the all-time record of consecutive overall World Cup crowns (five), set by Annemarie Moser-Proell of Austria in the 1970’s (Moser-Proell also holds the record for most career overall World Cup victories, with six).
And now more for what many of you came for, a couple more gratuitous Vonn photos:
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest webzine. He is also a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Chicago Now network, Walter Football.com, the Washington Times Communities, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank