Lindsey Vonn misses gold but remains the most human of champions

The American great, often beset by injury, goes about her trade with an emotional transparency almost unheard of among athletes of her caliberEight years of waiting came down to one hundred seconds on a sun-splashed, near-windless Wednesday morning in the Taebaek mountains. When it was over, Lindsey Vonn, the best women’s ski racer in history, was brought down with emotion. The long and crooked road from the Olympic downhill title she’d won eight years ago in Vancouver finally ended with a bronze medal that felt like a gold in light of the, shall we say, eventful interim. But the greatest skier the United States has ever produced was left with nothing even resembling a regret with the end of her Olympic career now within touching distance.Unlike Saturday’s super-G when the 33-year-old American had drawn the No 1 bib and with it the unenviable task of racing first among the field, Vonn chose to start seventh – two places after Italy’s Sofia Goggia, the young racer with whom she has traded downhill wins on the World Cup circuit all season. It allowed her to watch the 25-year-old’s line and know the time she would most likely need to beat. Vonn made no major errors but still finished 0.47 seconds behind Goggia’s winning time of 1 min 39.22 sec. Continue reading…
Via: Lindsey Vonn misses gold but remains the most human of champions