Older (not by much), but just as fast

Click to Enlarge Browse Vail Daily Photos U.S. Ski Team veteran Erik Schlopy holds his stance as he heads down the giant slalom course during training Thursday at Keystone. Dominique Taylor/Vail Daily WEB EXTRAS Ski Team at Keystone Get Sports Feeds

Ian Cropp
Vail, CO Colorado
November 9, 2007

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KEYSTONE — Meet the U.S. Ski Team’s Lindsey Vonn. She’s pretty much like her old self — Lindsey Kildow — with a few tweaks here and there.

Vonn, a former Ski & Snowboard Club Vail athlete, married Thomas Vonn on Sept. 29 in Deer Valley, Utah.

“Life is pretty much the same as every other day,” Vonn said Thursday at the base of Keystone’s North Peak after a training session. “It’s the same old life for the Vonns, as weird as that sounds.”

After a great 2007 season cut short by a knee injury, Vonn is back in form for this year’s World Cup campaign.

“I think I’m stronger than I’ve ever been before,” Vonn said. “I know I keep saying that every year, but your body matures and you are used to training and weightlifting and it becomes muscle memory. My endurance training has been awesome.”

Vonn’s left knee, which she sprained at the end of the 2007 World Alpine Championships, is at 100 percent, she said. And with two silver medals in her pocket from the World Championships, the big-race monkey is finally off Vonn’s back.

“That was the one thing I had never done — got medals at big events,” Vonn said. “I definitely was able to put a big check mark off on that goal. Now I have that confidence going into the next World Championships and the next Olympics.

“I feel more comfortable and more confident. Things are settling down, and I get to do what I love every day.”

Even Vonn’s German is improving.

“I feel like I’m breaking into new territory,” she said. “I’m friends with most of the Austrian girls. I like being in that culture. It’s the culture of ski racing, and it’s fun to be able to communicate with so many people.”

Last year, Vonn and teammate Julia Mancuso were a constant one-two threat in speed races. When she injured her knee, Vonn was second in the super-G standings and third in the downhill standings.

“I’m really hoping I can get a downhill or super-G title this year,” Vonn said. “The overall is always in the back of my mind, but I’m not going to focus on it. I’m just going to try to ski the best I can in speed and get a couple of points in (giant slalom) and slalom and see where that takes me.”

Traditionally, Vonn’s weakest event has been giant slalom, although at the opening race of this season in Solden, Austria, a giant slalom, Vonn took 13th.

“I trained really well this summer and (the International Ski Federation) changed the rules for skis, and Rossignol came up with some pretty sick skis. ... I think that had a lot to do with it.”

While Mancuso hasn’t been in Summit County, where the U.S. Team has been training this week on its exclusive hill at Keystone (used mostly for technical skiing) and at Copper (speed training), her presence will be felt when she arrives.
“It’s really sweet to have two people on the same team competing for everything,” Vonn said. “It’s pretty unique.”

“It’s a good, healthy rivalry,” said Alex Hoedlmoser, the U.S. women’s downhill and super-G coach. “It’s really nice for us as coaches, for the team and for the whole country that you have contenders in every event.”

With the retirement of Kirsten Clark, Caroline Lalivie’s season-ending knee surgery and Vail’s Sarah Schleper taking the year off to have a child, Vonn steps into an even bigger role for the team.

“I’m the old, married woman on the team, and I’m 23,” Vonn joked. “It’s kind of crazy. Poor Caroline — I feel awful for her. Our team took a big loss losing her. I’m just going to try to do my best to be the old, married woman and keep the kids in line.”

Healing with age
It really wasn’t too long ago that Bryon Friedman and Marco Sullivan were the future of the men’s team while Steven Nyman was cutting his teeth as the junior world slalom champion.

Now, along with elder statesman Erik Schlopy, who at 35 is five years older than anyone on the squad, Friedman and Sullivan are the veterans.

“I was thinking about that today,” Sullivan said Thursday. “I went from being the hot-shot rookie to all of a sudden the veteran with not much in between. We’ve got young guys coming up, and it’s cool they are actually looking to me for advice, and just trying to stay ahead of them is a challenge.”

Friedman, much like Sullivan, spent a long time coming back from a serious injury.
“It’s been brutal,” Friedman said of his more than 2 1⁄2 years spent slowly recovering from a horrific crash. “It’s weird. It feels, like, awkward at first — it doesn’t feel right, the speed and everything.

“Suddenly, three years later, I’m an old guy. But this is the most cohesive I’ve seen the team since I’ve been on it. The young guys are really respectful, and the old guys are also respectful of the young guys.”

The most glaring difference from last year’s team is the departure of the amazing and enigmatic Bode Miller. But life without Miller won’t be that much different.

“As he became more and more successful, he had more time constraints,” Schlopy said of Miller. “We also miss Daron (Rahlves). We’ll always miss a good competitor to train with.”

Schlopy, who almost is fully recovered from a bad knee injury that ended his season early last year, has provided a great boost to the team in terms of leadership.

“Everyone is happy he’s around,” said Greg Needell, the men’s giant slalom coach. “He brings so much experience and knowledge. It’s like having another coach for the guys. They have someone to go to. And he’s living in a totally different world.”

With a young daughter and a son on the way, Schlopy offers a different perspective to the very young team.

“It’s fun. I’m a dad now,” he said. “I catch myself telling guys stories about my daughter, and I think, ‘I don’t know if they want to hear stories about this yet.’”

Vail’s Lindsey Vonn, left, takes a breather between interviews Thursday at Keystone as teammate Jake Zamansky, right, of Aspen, talks to a reporter. Dominique Taylor/Vail Daily Browse Vail Daily Photos

A big change
A World Cup win can do plenty for a skier’s confidence. But it can also change a skier’s career.

“It laid a lot of expectations on me,” said Nyman, who took third at the Beaver Creek downhill and then won at Val Gardena, Italy. “It’s a whole new game. You can’t just concentrate on the skiing anymore. I’m the face of my company for speed (skiing). I develop a lot of the products. I have a lot of sponsor obligations. There are other things besides skiing. When you are young, it’s just skiing, skiing, skiing.”

Ted Ligety, who burst onto the scene with a gold in the super-combined at the Olympics, is in a similar situation to Nyman.

“The tricky thing is to keep winning,” Nyman said. “We had a meeting this spring, and they laid out all the past American winners, and I don’t know how many there were, 20 or 25, but there were only four of five who won multiple times. Ted has one (World Cup win — a giant slalom); I have one, but we’ve each only won once. A win also takes a little luck, too. I know a bunch of guys who have been on a ton of podiums but never won.”

Nyman has been happy to get some runs under his belt after a break from the snow in an attempt to heal a back injury.

“I progressed through the summer, and I’m feeling good here besides the fact that I went through the fence today and into the trees yesterday,” Nyman said.

On Thursday, Nyman crashed during a training run and came out OK, while his previous day’s encounter with the trees left him with a fat lip. Chris Beckmann had the biggest scare of the day, slipping and flying through a net on the course. With the back of his ski suit torn to shreds and bloody cut on the left side of his back, Beckmann skied to the bottom, where teammates took video and photos.

Everyone was glad Beckmann wasn’t hurt, and Sullivan put things into a different perspective.

“We had two guys go through the fence today,” he said. “That doesn’t happen in a normal training session. Guys are ramping up, getting ready to race.”

Extras: Seven U.S. Team members will compete in this weekend’s slalom races in Rieteralm, Austria. The races were scheduled for Levi, Finland, but were moved due to poor snow conditions. Following the slalom races, the men and women head to Canada for speed races, then swing back down for the Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek (men) and Winternational at Aspen (women).

Sports Writer Ian Cropp can be reached at 748-2935 or icropp@vaildaily.com.