Angela Ruggiero's classy - of course - transition

This past February, after a long day tromping around Pyeongchang, assessing the South Korea city's chances of hosting the 2018 Winter Games, Angela Ruggiero made her way to the hotel gym for a killer workout. I know, because I was already there, on the treadmill, putting in my miles. For the next hour, while the Olympic athlete put herself through this grueling workout, and the sportswriter trudged along, we talked about how hard it was to stay in shape on the road.

By that point last winter, Angela -- winner of four Olympic medals, elected after the Vancouver Games to a spot on the International Olympic Committee as a member of its athletes' commission -- had been living out of a suitcase for about 100 days on Olympic-related business.

To know Angela is to know that she doesn't do anything half-hearted. She's all in. Which explains why she announced Wednesday that her playing days are over.

Understand -- she doubtlessly could have made the USA women's team that will play at the Sochi 2014 Games, and will probably challenge there for the gold medal.

But to do what she is being asked to do now, to be the athlete's voice in forums around the world, demands her "complete heart and dedication," as she put it in a call Thursday with reporters.

It's just time to move on, she said, with the class and grace that has always marked her way in these sorts of things.

Sometimes these things can be complicated. But when you look at it the way Angela did, and you handle it the way she did -- really, it's easy.

Angela made the effort Wednesday to travel to the team camp in Minnesota to tell her teammates the news before it became public.

She played more games in a Team USA sweater than anyone else -- 256. She finished her international career with 208 points, with 67 goals and 141 assists. She won the four Olympic medals, one gold, in 1998, when she was the youngest player on the team -- and said Thursday it was probably her defining moment because being on top of the podium is "the pinnacle of our sport."

Angela played for the United States in 10 women's world championships, winning four; in 2005, she scored the winning shootout goal.

She was an all-American in all four of her seasons at Harvard. As a senior in 2004, she won the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, given to the top player in Division I women's hockey.

She was the first female non-goalie to play in a professional hockey game in North America; she played alongside her brother, Bill, for the Central Hockey League's Tulsa Oilers in a game in January, 2005.

"Angela Ruggiero has defined this era of women's hockey," the president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, Rene Fasel, said, and that pretty much sums it up.

What Angela aims to do now is pretty simple. There's a next era.

Someone has to be the voice for that next era. It's a full-time job.

"I'm urging countries like Russia and the Czech Republic, which have outstanding men's programs, to support their women's programs," she said Thursday, adding a moment later, "The game will continue to elevate and that's what's exciting … what I'm hoping is that some of these other countries will elevate at a faster level."

There's more on Angela's plate, too: representing the United States in international circles in the IOC; serving on the U.S. Olympic Committee board; maybe going to business school.

"There wasn't an a-ha moment," she said about this transition. "It was more of a cumulative moment. The biggest thing for me was the cumulative responsibility I have to the IOC and the USOC and I'm really passionate about that."

She also said, "I still love hockey. I'm just at a different stage in my life."

20/12 Olympic Park photos

In the Euro style, Tuesday was 20/12 -- that is, Dec. 20th. The London 2012 organizing committee, which goes by the acronym LOCOG, early Wednesday released a series of photos showing progress at Olympic Park, on the city's east side.

Here are those that show what the park looks like, and keep in mind that the Summer Games are due to begin July 27. London 2012 is not Athens 2004. This project will be ready.

The genuine Katie Uhlaender

It had been nearly three years since an American woman managed so much as a top-three finish in skeleton, the sliding sport on the bobsled track where it's just you and the sled and you rocket down the track face-first. All of that changed a few days ago high in the French Alps, on the twists and turns of a course at La Plagne. Annie O'Shea, a Long Island 24-year-old in her second year on the tour, had never before finished higher than seventh. She took second, just 37-hundredths back of Canada's Mellisa Hollingsworth after both runs -- a breakthrough performance.

And then here came Katie.

The one and only Katie Uhlaender.

The last American to win a medal in a World Cup race, in February, 2009, Uhlaender swept down the track in La Plagne a mere 18-hundredths of a second behind O'Shea to take third.

If this was the signal of a comeback, then this is a comeback to be welcomed because, to be plain, the Olympic scene is way more interesting with Katie Uhlaender around in a meaningful way.

Katie Uhlaender is a ferocious competitor. She's a two-time Olympian in the skeleton and a two-time World Cup overall champion. As well, she's trying to make the 2012 Summer Olympic team in weightlifting.

But that's not all. She's genuine. And enormously interesting.

She once worked on the reality-TV show "Survivor."

She does skateboard videos, racing down the Malibu mountains in California at speeds up to 45 miles per hour. "Dude, this chick can skate," says the guy with the shades and scraggly goatee -- what else? -- accompanying her in the video.

She works on the family cattle ranch in western Kansas.

Her father, Ted, played for the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds in the 1960s and early 1970s; he served as an Indians coach in the early 2000s. His death in early 2009 deeply affected her. Indeed, as she admits now, "All my dreams were crushed. Everything was crushed."

Six weeks after his death, her kneecap was cracked in a snowmobiling accident. That set off a string of injuries -- knee and hip -- and, she said, "The last two years of my life have been some of the hardest."

Along the way, she said, she had an epiphany: "In order to truly succeed, lose the ego of victory and focus on the journey. I know and have won before. Now it's the process that matters most."

And this, too -- it can be extraordinarily empowering not only to acknowledge but to confront your deepest, darkest fear.

"Fear," she said, "is an emotion that gives power. The minute you stop feeling it you invite injury or complacency -- you kill the essence of your being, who you are."

It was a conversation after the Vancouver Olympics with Carl Lewis, the sprinter, that helped considerably. He had lost his father, too, and told her the key "was to let go."

"He said once I let go I had everything I needed, and maybe more than I would ever know to prepare me for life and competition, and it was obvious I had everything I needed. I burst into tears. It's why I can take the ring off sometimes," her father's 1972 National League championship series ring, which had become her link to him.

"… It's just weird because when he said it -- I understood it. It's what I needed. I didn't understand it yet. It's like when you read a poem when you're young and you go, oh. But then you read it again when you're more experienced and you have an epiphany and you go, oh -- that's what that meant.

"I knew I was hearing wisdom but I didn't know how to conceptualize or experience it yet. When I heard it, I was, like -- he was so right."

Getting physically healthy, again, was the next step. "When I won a medal this past weekend -- of course I wanted to win the race itself -- I was ecstatic. I'm pretty happy with the results, and I think there's more to come. There's plenty more in me."

Of course there is. There's way, way more in Katie Uhlaender, who now can take in the grand sweep of all there is and say, "The key is to live life happy as you are and to embrace the challenges and fear that come with it. Otherwise," she said, "you are fighting the nature of living."

Lindsey Vonn, like Tim Tebow, comes through big time

Lindsey Vonn certainly has a sense for the moment. She won the super-G Wednesday at home on the Birds of Prey course in Beaver Creek, Colo. -- her first-ever win on an American course. It was her fourth straight World Cup victory. Pretty much every kid in Vail got the day off of school to watch Lindsey race; she sent them all home happy and, from the looks of it, with an autograph, too.

Beyond which -- just as she was about to hop onto the top step of the podium at the post-race ceremony, Lindsey dropped to a knee with her skis and struck the "Tebow" pose. Why not? When in Colorado, do like everyone else.

As the Associated Press and Denver Post reported, Lindsey -- always respectful -- had asked Denver Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow's brother, Robby, who was at the race, if it would be okay if she won to, um, "Tebow."

The Post reported that she said, "… If I won in Colorado, I would do it. Go Broncos! And I did it. Got to represent."

Lindsey Vonn is the extraordinary American star who leaps out of the sports pages to become a cultural phenomenon. That's all the more remarkable because skiing is hardly the NFL and it takes someone with verve and insight, someone like Vonn, to see the genius in striking the "Tebow" pose before a hometown crowd after winning a race.

For all that, her cross-over appeal is inextricably tied to and rooted in her skiing success. And what she is doing is not only rewriting the history books but revolutionizing the way a female skier approaches alpine racing.

It has been said here before and will be said again -- Lindsey Vonn is the best the United States has ever produced.

That fourth straight win -- Vonn is the first U.S. racer to ever win four straight. Her win gave the U.S. team its third win here in five races. Bode Miller won a downhill Friday; Ted Ligety won a giant slalom Tuesday.

The victory is the 46th of Vonn's World Cup career. That ties her for third on the all-time list with Renate Goetschl of Austria. Vreni Schneider of Switzerland has 55. Austria's Annemarie Moeser-Proell is tops with 62.

She now has 16 career World Cup super-G wins. That's tied for most with Katja Seizinger of Germany for all-time most.

It was Vonn's 14th win in her last 19 World Cup super-Gs. She has never finished lower than third -- and, as the U.S. Ski Team pointed out, third only once.

Of course she leads the overall World Cup standings.

She said she was more nervous Wednesday than she had maybe ever been before any race, feeling the pressure of wanting to come through for her family, friends, community and country. "Anything other than winning would have been a catastrophe and people would have been really disappointed," she allowed afterward.

She didn't get a great start. About halfway down, she almost missed a blind gate. But she kept charging and at the bottom of the course she put the hammer down.

Her time: 1:10:68.

Fabienne Suter of Switzerland finished 37-hundredths of a second behind. Anna Fenninger of Austria took third.

Julia Mancuso finished eighth, Leanne Smith 11th.

Vonn is racing now on men's skis. Every race. The course Wednesday was pretty much -- not quite -- the men's super-G Birds of Prey. She flat-out said "the goal today" was "to really attack," explaining, "I tried to ski like a guy."

That, simply put, is the Lindsey Vonn revolution in women's skiing.

She not only skis on men's skis. She skis like a guy.

As she explained: "I watched the men's race, the super-G here last week, and they're just so dynamic and aggressive, and they really take it down the fall line, and that's what I wanted to try today. I think I did that down the bottom. But I definitely was a little too straight in some parts -- almost missed a couple gates, you know, trying to be too dynamic trying to push the line."

She explained a couple days ago, in Lake Louise, Alberta, where she won two downhills and a super-G, that the balance in skiing means pushing the line between being aggressive and making mistakes.

Vonn, it must be understood, has re-defined the line. She is way more dynamic and way farther out on that line than any other woman in the world.

Can she be beaten? Of course.

Will she be beaten? Surely.

But -- assuming she stays healthy -- will she continue to do what no one else done?

That, too, seems inevitable.

This season promises to be unbelievable ride. It's only December. The season has really just begun.

Ted Ligety, master of his craft

Sometimes an athlete wins, and he or she is all giddy and doesn't have much to say about beyond, wow, I did it! Which, you know, is fine. There's an eloquence of sorts in sports for breathless excitement. Then there's a soliloquy like the one Ted Ligety delivered after he won the giant slalom Tuesday at the Birds of Prey course in Beaver Creek, Colo., with a breathtaking second run to hold off Austria's Marcel Hirscher, by 69-hundredths of a second, with Norway's Kjetil Jansrud third.

These were the words of an artist, an Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Cup giant slalom champion, a master at his craft describing the essence of sport, speed and soulfulness. Listen in:

"It feels really unique in the sense that it never gets super-steep so you can pretty much arc the whole entire thing. Especially on that bottom pitch down there, it's just the perfect steepness for laying out several times.

"I felt my hip on the ground several times, even up on the top, and that's so cool to have your hip on the snow and not have your hands on the snow and feel like you're still in perfect control and still have that grip and feel that sensation of speed out of the turn. it's -- it's so cool.

"It's why every guy who skis GS skis GS. it's because it's so unique in that sense where you really can feel the force. You can carve full, clean turns and really get the speed out of it and feel super laid-over. There's not [any other] sport where you can be on your hip and have nothing else touching but your feet. So it's really unique in that sense."

Ligety's victory made for yet another early-season highlight for the U.S. Ski Team. In 13 World Cup races, the American team has combined for seven victories and 10 top-three finishes.

The U.S. women race the super-G Wednesday at Beaver Creek. Lindsey Vonn -- who won back to back to back races over the weekend in Lake Louise, Alberta -- has never won a World Cup race in the United States.

Ligety is now 27. He's an accomplished professional. He speaks not just to hear himself to talk but because he has something to say.

For instance, he has actively been campaigning against a rules change that FIS, the international ski federation, has announced that would change the hourglass shape of current skis; the change is due to be implemented next season in what FIS says is an attempt to make the sport safer.

Ligety and other racers say the move was pushed through without their input and say it will set back skiing by years -- that skiers will have to skid into turns instead of arcing into them.

"… A lot less dynamic," he said at a news conference Tuesday, and on this occasion Ligety was being at his diplomatic best.

Ligety, meanwhile, was -- with good reason -- called "Mr. GS" at Tuesday's post-race news event. He leads the current World Cup GS standings and at this early stage in the season stands second in the overall race behind Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal.

Obviously, Ligety is still very much in his time, yet he is keenly aware of younger rivals, among them Hirscher, who is 22, and France's Alexis Pinturault, who led Tuesday's first run and who is just 20. Pinturault would ultimately finish Tuesday in fourth.

Of Pinturault, Ligety said, "I still feel pretty young. And having somebody seven years younger than me coming close to beating me and going to beat me sometime this year for sure -- I mean he's so fast, it's just a mater of time before he starts winning races.

"That's definitely a good motivator for me -- knowing that there's someone who's seven years younger than me who probably has more raw speed than I do. That's definitely something that is going to make me push harder in the future. I'm just hoping he doesn't get that mental ability and that race speed too soon."

Hirscher actually won Sunday's giant slalom in Beaver Creek, with Ligety second. Ligety then went to the tape, watching Hirscher's runs, in which, as Ligety said, Hirscher "skied pretty crazy well at the bottom there" and "crushed me by quite a bit and a lot of other guys," and used it Tuesday against him.

"I'm glad to come down and get some redemption," Ligety said.

Which he did how?

By skiing pretty crazy well himself. He pushed himself right to the limit, particularly in that second run.

Ligety said, "I was definitely on the edge. Obviously bobbles -- everybody makes bobbles. None of them cost me time. but I was definitely pushing as hard as I could. I was definitely a lot more aggressive that run than any of the runs I had taken here so far.

"I felt like I had kind of figured out the snow a little better and was able to just trust what my skis and everything was going to do a little better. I was just pushing super-hard. if I did that run several times, I don't know if I would make it to the finish line with a high percentage."

It worked Tuesday. And as Ligety said, "Any win is a good win."

That sort of brevity, too, can be eloquent.

Leanne Smith's time is now

The women's alpine World Cup tour moves to Beaver Creek, Colo., for a super-G race Wednesday and Lindsey Vonn is your favorite. Obviously. There were three races last weekend in Lake, Louise, Alberta; she won all three. Not only that, she'll be skiing five minutes from where she lives. You've got to like her chances. Julia Mancuso finished third in Sunday's super-G after taking third in Aspen just a few weeks ago. The odds would seem good for Julia, too.

At the same time, this U.S. team is so much more than just Lindsey and Julia, and Leanne Smith's breakthrough is just waiting to happen. You can just sense it.

You can see it in the way the numbers are rolling for her.

In one of the downhill training runs in Lake Louise, she rocked to fifth.

In last Friday's competition downhill in Lake Louise, she was running and gunning at the top of the hill, the celebration gearing up at the bottom and -- bam.

She didn't fall. She ran smack into a huge gust of wind.

In ski racing, as she said, "Variables can be a day stopper."

She also said, recalling the moment, "At the jump, I hit a headwind and I thought, 'Oh, no, I am so hosed here.' That is something that happens. I was definitely bummed out."

She finished 29th.

The next day -- 11th.

"You don't go from skiing really well to not," she said, adding a moment later with a laugh, "You hope you do enough good deeds so that the karma will come get you."

If anyone deserves some good karma, it's Leanne Smith.

For comparison purposes, she finished the 2010 season way back in 75th in the World Cup overall points.

2011: 30th.

Why? Consistency.

Why so much more consistent? She was injury free.

Some detail behind that 30th: She finished the season 15th in super-G, 19th in super-combined, 22nd in downhill. Best, she earned her first trip to the world championships.

This season, she said, "I am the most optimistic I have been any year so far." Without any significant injury, "Last year I had the the best year of my career and got super-consistent. I am skiing better now than I was then. Why not be excited?"

It's reasonable this season to shoot for World Cup podium finishes, she said. To get there means shaving tenths or even hundredths of a second off finish times from last year.

"In your mind," she said, "that's a minimal amount of time to make up and there are things you can do to get there, just a little bit of execution combined with luck and confidence. It's why I really am looking forward to this season and I would love to get some podiums.

"I am happy to show everybody what I can do, and hopefully get up there with Julia and Lindsey and show everybody how good our speed team is. We have a lot of really good speed skiers."

It's why, in Lake Louise, the night before that first downhill, Leanne wasn't the least bit nervous. "That feeling inside me was great," she said.

Now, heading toward Wednesday's super-G in Beaver Creek, "I just know I need to push it more and not over-ski. You just have to know that you are giving it your best and you're not being a sissy.

"If you want to keep up with Lindsey," she said, "you have to push it. I'm excited. I'm excited to be on home turf."

Lindsey Vonn: a champion for our time

Lindsey Vonn skied even faster Saturday than she did the day before in winning -- again -- a World Cup downhill at Lake Louise, Alberta. As she did Friday, she led from wire to wire. On Friday, she crossed in 1:53.19. On Saturday, she went 1:51.35. Lower temperatures had hardened the course; that made it generally faster Saturday than it had been Friday.

Vonn had won Friday by a ridiculous 1.95 seconds. She won Saturday by "only" 1.68 seconds. France's Marie Marchand-Arvier finished second. Austria's Elisabeth Goergl finished third.

To top it off, she won the super-G on Sunday, with American Julia Mancuso taking third. The only other woman to win all three World Cup races at Lake Louise was Germany's Katja Seizinger in 1997.

Vonn now has 45 World Cup wins, far and away most ever by an American. Bode Miller, who won the Birds of Prey downhill Friday in Beaver Creek, Colo., has 33.

It's important to document what Lindsey Vonn has done this weekend in Lake Louise; truly, she has made history because you don't win ski races by 1.95 and 1.68 seconds.

At the same time, enough already with the numbers. They don't tell the real story, which is that we are in the presence of one of the great champions of American sport -- any sport, any time.

There's a simple reason 15-year-old boys like Parker McDonald want Lindsey Vonn to be their date to the Homecoming dance -- which she was last month back home in Colorado -- and it's way more than the fact that she looks killer when she's all dressed up.

She is a champion.

And we as a nation are so eager for a champion the likes of Lindsey Vonn.

No one, of course, is perfect, and Lindsey would be the first to tell you she is not.

But there hasn't been even one significant misstep on the public stage, even as she has traversed any number of personal dramas -- including the split, just announced, from her husband, Thomas.

The way she handled that this week? She made a point of publicly thanking her teammates; her extended World Cup family; posted a picture of longtime friend and rival Maria Hoefl-Riesch on Facebook; and then went out and won, big time, twice.

Even Julia Mancuso, who came of age with her on tour and is a very different spirit, said on Facebook after the first victory at Lake Louise that "you have to be impressed by a 2-second win by Lindsey Vonn."

All Lindsey does, basically, is overcome adversity and win. There might, or might not, be a ton of stuff going on behind the scenes. If there is, she doesn't let on. She doesn't complain. She just goes out, races as hard as she can, and a heck of a lot of the time she wins.

Lesser souls would have crumbled under any one of these incidents:

The horrifying training crash at the 2006 Olympics, so bad that a lot of people thought would have left her with a broken back -- she got out of the hospital and finished eighth at the downhill.

The bizarre incident at the 2009 world championships where her thumb was almost severed by a champagne bottle -- for the rest of the season, she skied with her thumb taped to her pole and won the overall World Cup title.

The crash before the 2010 Winter Games that banged her shin so severely that she couldn't even put her ski boot on -- she managed to win two medals, including gold in the downhill.

The concussion last season -- she overcame it and then, down 216 points, went on one of the great runs for the overall title, denied at the very end by the weather, short by only three points.

You want character, sportsmanship, fair play -- the kind of athlete little kids stand in line, in the cold, to get an autograph from?

One autograph request on Saturday was for Lindsey to sign a little girl's forehead.

"It's really cute," Lindsey said. "Kids just come up with some crazy ideas about what they want me to sign. You know, mostly it's hats and shirts but a lot of times it's foreheads and cheeks and arms. Kids are crazy. But very cute."

And here's why she's so obliging -- because when she, Lindsey, was a little girl, Picabo Street signed a poster, and Lindsey still has that poster. It's up in her house.

"It's something I've always remembered -- how big an impact Picabo had in my life when I was a kid," she said. "I always try to do my best to keep the kids positive and smiling and encourage them to follow their dreams, like Picabo did for me."

That's the real story.

Sarah Hendrickson's flying feat

There are those select few who willingly strap skis to their feet and throw themselves off jumps and into the air. They fly and they say it's the greatest feeling in the world. Until Saturday, there had never been a World Cup event at which those few sanctioned to do so had been female.

Now that event is history, and the books will forever say that the winner of the first World Cup ski jump -- on the same hill in Lillehammer, Norway, used by the men at the 1994 Winter Games -- was a 17-year-old American. Her name is Sarah Hendrickson. She didn't just win. She won big. She flew long and strong.

"There's nothing else you can ever imagine," she said afterward in a telephone interview. "There's nothing else in the world that can compare. There's not one time you don't have that wonderful feeling. You love the sport. And flying through the air is what you train for every day.

"When I jump, I forget about everything that's around me."

Sarah's first jump Saturday was 100.5 meters, seven-and-a-half meters longer than anyone else; her second was 95.5, again well out in front. She scored 277 points for the win. Coline Mattel of France took second with 247.7 points, Melanie Faisst of Germany third with 245.5

Nearly 50 jumpers from 15 nations competed Saturday; this first-ever women's jump World Cup tour includes 14 events at nine venues in seven countries. The women have been jumping on the lower-level Continental Cup for seven years. They are due to make their Olympic début at the 2014 Sochi Games.

It is way too soon to be forecasting Olympic prospects for Sarah, or for anyone else. Even so, her development is a classic study in exactly what American officials said would happen as a result of the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

She was born in Salt Lake and raised in Park City, 35 minutes up Interstate 80, where many of the alpine and the jumping events of those 2002 Games were held.

Sarah has been on skis since she was 2. Her older brother, Nick, who is now 20, is on the U.S. Nordic combined team. "Jump far lil sis!" he posted Saturday to his Twitter account.

In 2002, during the Salt Lake Games, the locals' access to what is now Utah Olympic Park in Park City was naturally closed down, Sarah remembers. There were some small hills at the Canyons Resort and, she said, "I started [jumping] because I saw my brother doing it."

She said, "You start out using your alpine skis. Gradually, you switch to jumping skis. I haven't stopped since."

In 2010, Sarah became the only American -- male or female -- to win a medal in a junior world ski jumping championship, winning bronze.

This week, it was clear Sarah was the strongest in the women's field. On Friday, she was first in both training rounds and had the longest jump of the day, 98 meters.

The issue Saturday, really, was whether she could hold it together mentally.

As it turned out -- no problem.

"Today she was unbeatable," the U.S. women's coach, Paolo Bernardi, said. "At the moment she looks like a dominator. She is mentally two, three steps ahead of everybody else. She is in the zone."

She's only 17. You'd never know it.

"At the U.S. team, we have been training for quite a few years now," Sarah said. "We train for competition. Once you get to the jumping level of training, you have to train like you're competing. Ski jumping is a huge, huge, huge mental game. That's a huge part of it.

"What helps me is just relaxing and always thinking that I have more opportunities to come. If a particular jump works out -- awesome. If one doesn't work out, ok, I have another opportunity."

This first World Cup opportunity, though, forever marks Sarah as something special. "It's a nice history what is going on: Sarah is the perfect player, the perfect actor, for the viewers at home," Bernardi said.

Sarah said of winning: "It's fun." She laughed. "For sure."

Lindsey Vonn +1.95 seconds = wow

Lindsey Vonn didn't just win her 43rd World Cup race Friday. She absolutely dominated.

She won the downhill in Lake Louise, Alberta, up in Canada, by 1.95 seconds. That's crazy.

Alpine skiing is typically decided by tenths or even hundredths of a second. Bode Miller won the Birds of Prey World Cup downhill in Beaver Creek, Colo., Friday by four-hundredths of a second. That made it a banner day for the U.S. Ski Team; the last time there was a double downhill American win was on Dec. 3, 2004, again by Bode and Lindsey. His win Friday was fantastic. Hers -- simply outrageous.

It has to be said: The other racers on the tour are, like, really good, too.

Lichtenstein's Tina Weirather, skiing from the back of the back -- bib number 40 -- was the only racer to come within two seconds of Vonn. Dominique Gisin of Switzerland, who had put up Thursday's fastest training run, was 2.06 seconds back for third place.

Vonn's winning time over the 3,068-meter course: 1:53.19.

Another American, Alice McKennis, competing in her first World Cup race since breaking her leg last year, finished eighth.

At every ski race, there's a live timing system set up so that you can follow along. It lets you see not only whether a particular racer is ahead or behind of the leader at certain intervals but also just how fast each racer is going.

Lindsey Vonn started 22nd Friday. That's an ideal start spot. On purpose, alpine racing officials group the best skiers from roughly the 16th to 22nd start slots.

That means Lindsey knew going down what her chief rivals had done.

She also knew this particular course like the back of her hand. She has seen more success here than anywhere else on tour -- before Friday, winning eight races and standing on the podium 14 times.

At the same time, it was windy out there. "I could feel the wind heavily when I was skiing," Lindsey would say later, adding, "I just tried to ski as aggressively as I could."

At the first interval Friday, she was already four-tenths of a second ahead. At the second, she was 1.07 seconds up. The first speed clock got her going 124.8 kilometers per hour, or 77.5 miles per hour. That's on ice, not snow;  ice is how the World Cup surfaces are set up.

At interval three, her lead was 1.22 seconds. At interval four, 1.35.

The second speed clock got her going 127.9 kph, or 79.5 mph.

Think about that for just a moment. At that point in the course, she already had been skiing for 80 seconds. She had about 30 seconds yet to go. This is the point where other racers start to give in; their legs start to burn and they start slowing down.

Not Lindsey Vonn. The clock proved it. She was going faster on the bottom of the hill than on top.

Think again about what she was doing. Think about driving your car on ice at 79.5 miles per hour, about what the sensation of that would be like. Now think about that would be like without being inside the heated comfort of the drivers' cockpit -- the split-second decision-making, the rush of the trees by your eyes, the slash of your skis through the ice, the whip of the cold wind on your face.

At interval five, her lead was up to 1.89 seconds. At the finish, it was 2.06, over Gissin. Weirather, 18 spots later, had yet to come.

The 1.95-second margin is by far the most Vonn has ever won by. She said she had won once by 1.2 seconds -- in Lake Louise, of all places.

 "I really couldn't believe it when I got to the finish today," Vonn said later at a news conference. "My goal today was to ski as aggressively as I could and try not to make any mistakes."

She said a moment later, a little laugh in her voice, "It was awesome."

It was, and all the more so because of what's going on in her personal life -- the recently announced split from her husband, Thomas. Her sister, Karin Kildow, came to Lake Louise to be there for her. Her U.S. teammates were being so supportive, she made a point of saying; so was Maria Hoefl-Riesch, her longtime friend; so were "the entire World Cup girls."

Even so, just to be out there on the Lake Louise course Friday was probably the very best thing for Lindsey Vonn.

"When I'm on my skis and I'm on the mountain," she said, "I feel calm and I feel comfortable. I love skiing. I love going fast. I love downhill. Today, even if I didn't win, just racing and being out on the mountain is what I need."

But, she was asked at that news conference --  to win by such a huge margin?

This is the secret to Lindsey Vonn's success -- and, for those expecting magic, it's so elemental. It's hard work and ferocious drive, all of which she made abundantly plain in one of the most incredible performances you would ever want to see in a nearly two-second victory at Lake Louise, Alberta:

"I try to work hard every day. I try to do my best every day. I always want to try to improve. Even if I win a race, I still want to improve. I think it's just that I am never satisfied. That keeps me motivated and keeps me wanting to do my best every day."

IOC hit by alleged embezzlement at Olympic Museum

The International Olympic Committee has been rocked by the discovery that as much as $1.85 million has allegedly been embezzled from the accounts of the Olympic Museum, multiple sources confirmed Thursday. Swiss police and prosecutors in Lausanne, Switzerland, the IOC's base, have launched an investigation, targeting the former head of the boutique at the Olympic Museum, Hiroshi Grieder. He is believed to be in custody, a source close to the investigation said.

The IOC has fired the three people who oversaw the museum's financial controls. The money -- somewhere between 1.4 to 1.7 million Swiss francs -- was tied to a scheme that dated back to the late 1990s, multiple sources said, speaking for publication on condition of anonymity.

The IOC's director of finance and administration, Thierry Sprunger, who had been on sick leave since Nov. 1, returned to work Thursday. He tendered his resignation to IOC president Jacques Rogge a few days ago; a formal announcement will be forthcoming in the next few days, amid meetings of the IOC's finance commission and policy-making executive board.

Sprunger, a member of the IOC staff since 1994, has not been accused of misconduct.

In an unrelated development, the IOC's protocol director, Paul Foster, also left the committee.

The discovery of something potentially amiss at the Museum has posed one of the most significant tests to the IOC leadership since the Salt Lake corruption scandal of the late 1990s; it revolved around revelations that IOC members or their relatives had been given more than $1 million in cash, gifts and other inducements by bidders for Salt Lake City's winning campaign for the 2002 Winter Games.

That affair saw the resignation or expulsion of 10 IOC members, and the enactment of a 50-point reform plan that included a ban on visits by IOC members to cities bidding for the Games.

This shows just how different the IOC is now than it was then.

Now institutional mechanisms are in place for the IOC to deal with a potential crisis, and in an intelligent manner.

"This is not Salt Lake City," a senior IOC source said, adding, "There is full transparency. We could have tried to hide the facts. We decided to address it. Let's get to the bottom of it. Let's clean it up. Let's take the consequences. All that has been done."

When he assumed the IOC presidency in 2001, Jacques Rogge -- like everyone in Olympic circles -- was keenly aware of the Salt Lake affair, and the stain of corruption. He has spent his two terms in office trying to put all that behind the IOC.

The IOC calls its CEO job "director general." Christophe de Kepper took the post earlier this year.

This, then, marked one of his first serious challenges -- and just as an Olympic year, with the London 2012 Games, is just about to start, with the world's attention turning relentlessly again towards the IOC.

De Kepper, who had previously been Rogge's chief of staff, has long been a formidable executive. Getting this wrong could undermine him. But getting it right, of course, could make him even stronger.

The alleged embezzlement was discovered in September, when there was a change in management at the Museum boutique. The books didn't seem to match up; de Kepper launched an audit, then an investigation that pointed toward fraud.

Details remain to be made fully public. But, sources said, it appears that the long-running scheme involved either cash advances on an IOC-issued credit card that were misappropriated, or false invoices to companies that never existed.

Over the years, IOC internal controls failed to pick up any discrepancies; de Kepper moved decisively to dismiss the three officials.

A few days ago, de Kepper wrote IOC staff in an e-mail, "I regret to inform you that we have discovered financial irregularities in the management of the Olympic Museum shop."

That e-mail goes on to say, "We have undertaken a full and immediate investigation of the facts, and already taken a number of measures, including dismissals and the launching of a criminal complaint against a former IOC employee. Transitional measures will be put in place for the management of the sections impacted.

"Whilst these facts are clearly not good news for the IOC, they should remind us all of our duties in terms of responsibility, efficiency and transparency and underline our strong determination to deal effectively with any matters that could damage the organization."

The Museum developments may yet hold consequences for IOC politics, in particular the race -- just now developing -- to succeed Rogge. The IOC presidential election will be held in September, 2013, in Buenos Aires.

A short list of expected candidates would include, among others, Thomas Bach of Germany and Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico.

Earlier this year, Carrion led the negotiations that brought the IOC the $4.3 billion NBC TV rights deal that runs from 2014 through 2020; that deal secures the IOC's financial base. At the same time, he is also chairman of both the IOC finance and audit commissions, and it's inevitable questions will now be asked about what he knew, and when, if anything, about the Museum finances.

Carrion said Thursday, "When this came up, we said, 'Let's investigate.' The investigation went on. We took action right away. The director general took strong and decisive action."

At the IOC's annual assembly this past summer in Durban, South Africa, longtime member Dick Pound of Canada suggested that -- strictly as a matter of best governance practice -- the chairmanship of the audit and finance commissions ought to be split between two people. That issue probably will now be put to renewed review.

The Museum, situated on a rise overlooking Lake Geneva, opened in 1993 and is consistently ranked among Europe's top tourist attractions.

In an unrelated development, the IOC said Thursday the Museum will offer free admission until the end of January before closing for a long-planned facelift. The renovation is due to last 20 months.