Normally, I try to avoid bogging down a story with digits. But this lead item requires the nuances of numbers to tell it best.
So I seek your patience as I present a case that American Lindsey Vonn could become the best American skier of all time, and one of the best in history.
By the end of the current Alpine ski season, Vonn will likely become at least the co-record holder for most World Cup wins by a U.S. woman.
It may even happen before the world championships begin on Feb. 3. Vonn, a speed specialist, boasts 16 World Cup wins, two behind U.S. record holder Tamara McKinney, who set the record in 1987 two years before she retired at the age of 26.
Vonn is scheduled to ski a downhill race, a giant slalom and a super-G in Cortina, Italy through Monday.
An unlikely but not impossible sweep in Italy would crown her the queen of U.S. skiing, or it could happen the next weekend in a slalom and a super-G in Germany.
It’s likely Vonn will surpass McKinney later in the season barring injury or a calamitous incident, such as a two-month winter heat wave through Europe.
Vonn has close to two dozen more competitive options through the end of the World Cup season to become the top U.S. female skier of all time at age 24.
To put her impending accomplishment in perspective, let’s compare her to some other global stars in individual sports that feature annual pro tour competitions.
If Vonn claims three more World Cup wins this season by early March (she’s already won three), she will achieve her 19th victory at a younger age than arguably the best athlete in the world, PGA Tour icon Tiger Woods. Both will have been 24, but Vonn would beat Woods to the mark by a matter of days.
Vonn, however, would not match tennis star Maria Sharopova, who won her 19th WTA title at age 19.
Against other alpine skiing greats, Vonn would sit near the top of the list for youngest to reach 19 World Cup wins. Two current female alpine stars, Anja Pearson of Sweden and Renate Gotschi of Austria have more wins, but only Paerson was younger (23) when she reached 19. Annemarie Moser-Pröll of Austria, the women’s all-time World Cup leader with 62, also reached the number at age 19.
The men’s all-time leader, Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, reached the 19th of his 86 wins at age 21. Among active male skiers, Vonn will likely surpass Hermann Maier of Austria (age 26) and fellow American Bode Miller (age 27).
Vonn won silver medals in the downhill and super-G at the 2007 world championships and is a medal contender in the downhill, slalom and combined. She’s currently ranked first in the downhill, second in the slalom and third in the combined events in the World Cup.
She competed in five events at the 2006 Winter Games after crashing in downhill training and being airlifted off the mountain. Her best finish was a seventh place in the super-G.
If she stays healthy and competes with consistency for another decade, Vonn could retire as the top World Cup winner in U.S. ski history.
Vonn’s career could be shortened and/or derailed by desires for motherhood (she was married in 2007 to former U.S. skier Thomas Vonn) or burnout. An eight -year veteran of the World Cup circuit, Vonn first competed on the tour at 16 years old.
It’s not rare for top women skiers to compete into their thirties. Vonn has given no indication that she would retire from skiing at the same age as McKinney, leaving open the chance she could leave the sport with achievements unmatched by any U.S. skier.
Jamaicans consider smoking ban - When Jamaican athletics officials hear their Beijing Olympic champion stable of sprinters, led by triple gold medalist Usain Bolt, described as “smokin’” fast, they want to ensure the reference applies only to their surreal speed.
At its 2009 anti-doping symposium last week in Kingston, the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission discussed the impact of second hand smoke from cigarettes and marijuana on its track and field athletes.
The Jamaican Information Service reports that Dr. Herb Elliott, a board member of the IAAF Medical Committee, said after the symposium that he supports a ban on smoking in public sports arenas.
Elliott added that an athlete who inhaled second hand smoke tested positive for marijuana in his system. The IAAF prohibits marijuana use while in competition.
In an editorial last weekend, The Jamaican Observer called “frightening” that second hand smoke from “ganja”, as it called marijuana, could lead to a positive test because “it is treated as socially acceptable by huge sections of the Jamaican population. Some would argue...that it is part and parcel of the Jamaican culture.”
Could there be a cultural backlash following a ganja ban at Jamaican athletic stadiums?
“I don’t think it will be an issue,” Bruce James, the president of the Kingston-based MVP Track Club, said by phone this week. The MVP club includes Olympic gold medalist sprinters Shelly Ann Fraser (100m) and Melanie Walker (400m hurdles) as well as Asafa Powell, Michael Frater, and Nesta Carter (all 4x100m relay).
“It’s illegal in Jamaica, whether in public or private. And at an arena you’d have athletes possibly inhaling second hand smoke and then give a positive test. They are reasons it should be banned. But it’s interesting. How can you come up with a ban for something that’s illegal? I’m not sure there will be a national outcry.”
A heavy chore for Phelps - Michael Phelps resumed intense training this week, embracing a return to normalcy and needing to lose 15 pounds he says he has gained since the Beijing Olympics.
“I feel recharged,” he said during a teleconference call Thursday to discuss being named the USOC SportsMan of the Year. “I feel like there’s some normality back to my life. I can get to sleep earlier. I have no problem falling asleep now.”
Phelps’ first workout of cardio, weight and core training along with an hour in the pool took two-and-a-half hours on Tuesday. Wednesday he swam for an hour and did abdominal work. He trained two days while traveling and returned to Baltimore this weekend.
“I’m in a state of shock,” he said. “Everything in my body is brutally hurting.”
Phelps does not plan to reduce his commitment to training despite winning eight gold medals in Beijing and said he does not plan to swim eight events at major meets, which would include the Olympics and world championships.
“I don’t want to come back and swim these four years and not be satisfied on how it went,” he said. “I don’t think it will be as intense as my last four years but it will still be intense.
Phelps plans to compete in the 2009 world championships in July in Rome and hopes to return to competition at the Austin Grand Prix March 4 in Texas.
Selig’s Olympic pitch - Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said in a letter to the International Olympic Committee’s program committee last week that the 2016 Olympics will have “the best representation of professional players in Olympic history,” should the sport be introduced back into the Games in 2016, according to a report on MLB.com.
Baseball is one of seven sports seeking to be added to the 2016 Summer Olympics. An announcement is expected in the fall.
Selig also said, "We'd like to be flexible...We'd like to do whatever we can. But...you can't stop a season in August and tell your fans we'll see you in 2½-3 weeks. That would not play well. And look, you'd be playing baseball into December. Just pragmatism takes over."
Are we to believe that MLB owners will let their top players leave their team in August for up to three weeks? There’s a better chance Roger Clemens will admit to using banned drugs.
Asked how baseball expects to send its best players under those restraints, Selig said, "Harvey (Schiller) and I talked about that.... We'll see. We're working on it.”
Schiller, the International Baseball Federation president who has recently been working hard to sell the benefits of baseball as an Olympic sport again, reacted positively to Selig’s comments. He briefed MLB owners last week at a meeting about baseball’s possible return to the Olympics.
"The reaction (of the owners) was good," Schiller said on MLB.com. "They know it's within their best interests to get back into the Olympic program. The big statement is getting the best players in there."
The International Olympic Committee has said baseball must include the top players in the world, most of whom play in Major League Baseball, to return to the Games. In a phone interview Thursday, Schiller was asked if he thought MLB owners would release their top players from league play to compete in the Olympics.
“In the eyes of the IOC, they would like to see names that are recognizable,” he said. “It’s seven years from now. I think we can work it out.”
Don’t be surprised if MLB MVP’s do not become 2016 Olympians. It’s more realistic that some players with All-Star credentials could fill an Olympic roster.
Meantime, Schiller earlier this month in a blog post on the IBAF web site promoted the idea of a combined bid by softball and baseball for the 2016 Games despite softball’s interest in submitting a separate bid.
A combined bid could result in four sports rather than three being added to the 2016 Games, easing the burden of both softball and baseball in their bid efforts. That will likely be one of the selling points for Selig during a planned meeting in the coming weeks with International Softball Federation President Don Porter to discuss ways the two sports can work together.
I guess that means he would like to play for the United States in those competitions, but he’s not willing yet to say he definitely will.
Meantime, Duke University head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who led the Americans to the gold medal in Beijing last summer, has said on his XM Satellite Radio show that he will decide after the college season if he will return as men’s USA head coach. He says it would not be fair to his Duke players if he made an announcement during the season.
USA Basketball hopes to win the 2010 worlds to avoid having to qualify for the London Games.
Inauguration pins-a-plenty - President Obama did not mention his home city of Chicago’s efforts to secure the bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics in his inauguration speech Tuesday, but Chicago 2016 officials made sure their effort was represented during the historic day.
Chicago 2016 staffers distributed about 5,000 Chicago 2016 inauguration pins during inauguration festivities in Washington, DC, including at a reception Sunday hosted by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley; during a parade watching party at the City of Chicago’s Washington, D.C.’s office; and at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting.
Chicago 2016 CEO Patrick Ryan was one of five people on Obama’s inauguration committee.
De La Hoya boosts boxing program - Oscar De La Hoya, a ten-time world pro champion and 1992 Olympic gold medalist, will serve as the official spokesperson for USA Boxing’s Gloves Not Guns, a youth development program, USA Boxing announced this week. De La Hoya will help promote the program, which teaches boxing to kids as a positive activity.
The program was started in 2007 at the AIBA World Championships in Chicago in partnership with World Sport Chicago and the United States Olympic Committee. Gloves Not Guns will be available this year in the cities of Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, DC and Miami as well as in Illinois and Connecticut.
By Dave Ungrady / Universal Sports
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