The U.S. alpine ski team has become one of the biggest sports success stories of the year.
That comes as news in the skiers’ home country, where most fans pay attention to ski racing only during the Olympics, if at all. The skiers understand that, just as they realize that few will understand why they find accomplishments in the World Cup season that ended Sunday more satisfying than Olympic triumphs.
“This is tenfold more important to me than my Olympic gold,” said 2006 Olympic combined champion Ted Ligety about winning the World Cup season title in giant slalom.
“Americans focus on the Olympics, and the No. 1 goal in my life is to win an Olympic gold medal,” said Lindsey Vonn, the 2008 World Cup overall and downhill titlist. “To be honest, discipline titles and overall titles are much, much harder to win.”
Never have U.S. skiers won as many World Cup titles as this season. Ligety, Vonn and a resurgent Bode Miller, who won the overall and combined, brought home nearly half the dozen crystal globes awarded at the end of a five-month, 30-plus-race season.
Those trophies reward consistent excellence, while Olympic medals go to the best skier on a given day.
Yet nearly all of the greatest skiers also have Olympic medals, and most have gold. The lone major exception is Tamara McKinney, who became in 1983 the only other U.S. woman to win the World Cup overall title.
“I’ve always looked at the record books and thought, ‘Those people are amazing,'” Vonn said.
At 23, she is making people think of her the same way, having won six races this season. Miller also won six; Ligety, two.
They weren’t the only successful U.S. skiers. Five men and two women made individual race podiums.
“Austria still is the best ski nation,” Ligety said, “but our top level is very, very good.”
Miller left little doubt he is the best U.S. skier ever, even if his second overall title comes with a caveat: defending champion Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway was severely hurt in a season-ending and possibly career-ending crash after winning two of the first four races.
But serious injuries are part of ski racing, as Vonn found out a year ago, when a knee injury ended her season six weeks early.
“I’ve crashed a lot in my career, and it never has kept me down,” Vonn said after reaching heights that seem, well, Olympian.
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phersh@tribune.com
