Lindsey Vonn: 47 and counting

After she had won the super-G Sunday at one of her favorite spots, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and made history yet again, Lindsey Vonn shared a little bit of herself. Last week, at the World Cup stop in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, Lindsey was suffering from a stomach illness. She came in 18th in the super-G -- the first time in 19 starts she missed a World Cup super-G podium. It was her worst finish in super-G in five years.

"You know," she said after winning Sunday, her 47th career World Cup win, "for me, if I don't have the strength, I can't do what I want to do and I don't trust myself. Confidence and trust are very important things in my skiing. I have those two things back.

"I knew what I had to do to win the race today and I think I executed my plan well. I"m really happy the way the whole weekend went and I'm really proud of buy whole team. As a team, we had an incredible weekend. Stacy and Julia and Leanne and Laurenne and everyone is skiing really well. So I think for the entire U.S. team -- it was very successful."

There you have it, in two paragraphs -- Lindsey Vonn, the 2012-season version.

Confidence and trust in her own skiing and the bond with her team that helps keeps her going amid the -- many -- other distractions in her life, some deeply personal.

The victory lifts Lindsey into third on the all-time World Cup win list, ahead of Austria's Renate Goetschl, who has 46. Switzerland's Vreni Schneider has 55; Austria's Annemarie Moser-Proell has 62.

"The records in skiing are really important to me," Lindsey told reporters afterward.

"It's the history of our sport and it's something you can look back on and be proud of what you've done with your career. I never thought that I'd be able to reach as many victories as I have now. Renate has always been such a role model. I can't believe I'm at a point where I can stand alongside her in history."

Lindsey hadn't won a World Cup race since a super-G Dec. 7 at Beaver Creek, Colo. She led Sunday at every interval, finishing in 1:26.16. Germany's Maria Hoefl-Riesch, last season's World Cup overall winner and Lindsey's longtime friend and rival, finished second, in 1:26.77. Slovenia's Tina Maze took third, in 1:27.02.

Cortina, as Lindsey noted, is where she first made her first World Cup podium -- eight years ago, in the downhill. The victory Sunday was her fourth straight super-G win in Cortina and sixth at the Italian resort.

"I say it every time I come here: Cortina is always a special place for me … I like the hill. It's -- the snow is perfect here. It's always dry, dense snow, similar to Colorado where I grew up skiing."

When you have that and when you ski with confidence and trust in yourself, you get classic Lindsey -- a "good combination of risk and aggression but still staying in control," as she put it immediately after the race, declaring, "I'm happy."

Julia Mancuso finished fifth, just 12-hundredths back of Maze. Leanne Smith finished 10th -- the third-best result of her career. Laurenne Ross took 13th -- her second-best result-ever. Stacey Cook, who had finished sixth in Saturday's downhill, finished 25th. Alice McKennnis landed in 38th.

The Americans were awarded what's called the "Cortina Trophy," which goes to the most successful team over the weekend. Imagine how even a few years back how that would have been unthinkable -- an American ski team winning such an award in the heart of Europe.

With the victory, Lindsey now leads the 2012 overall World Cup standings by 291 points over Maze. She leads the super-G standings by 87 points over Fabienne Suter of Switzerland.

All in all, there was only discordant note to the day. Asked by a reporter about Denver's blowout loss to the New England Patriots in the NFL playoffs Saturday night, Lindsey -- who, remember, is a Colorado girl and even Tebowed after her super-G win in Beaver Creek -- said, "I'm really bummed out the Broncos lost."

Russell Currier's breakthrough

Never before had Russell Currier so much as cracked the top-50 in a World Cup biathlon. Until Saturday.

Currier, a 24-year-old from Stockholm, Maine, finished sixth at the World Cup 10-kilometer sprint in Nove Mesto, in the Czech Republic. Tim Burke finished 11th. Lowell Bailey came in 21st and Jay Hakkinen 31st.

Currier finished 23.2 seconds back of the winner, Emil Hegle Svendsen, who crossed in 27:13.1. French brothers Simon and Martin Fourcade took second and third.

The strong U.S. finish, led by Currier, underscores the enhanced legitimacy of  the American team as it builds toward  Sochi and 2014.

It's a question of persistence, patience and, of course, performance -- not unlike that delivered by the U.S. men's Nordic combined team, which broke through at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.

Currier is now the fourth man on the U.S. team to finish top-10 already this season -- evidence that, finally, the Americans have some depth.

Burke, Bailey and Hakkinen are veterans.

Leif Nordgren, for instance, anchored the U.S. relay to a sixth-place finish at the 2011 world championships.

There are others. But everyone associated with the program has long understood that Currier -- who is a product of the Maine Winter Sports Center -- could be a star.

If -- and this has always been the big if -- he could just dial in the shooting part of the sport.

Russell's skiing: solid.

The shooting: that has, over the years, needed work.

After a camp this fall, in Utah, he and his coaches went back to the drawing board. They changed the sight on his rifle. They worked on the way he went about taking his breaths during the prone segment of the shooting. They worked on what he was thinking about in the shooting range.

"We changed up the focus and committed to a few thought processes ingrained into my head so that every time I come into shoot, no matter where I am, it's the same consistent thought process -- so that I get a foundation of consistency," he said late Saturday.

If that sounds elemental -- at this level, sometimes simple things can make a big difference.

It was really windy Saturday out on the Nove Mesto course. Didn't matter.

Russell Currier shot clean. No penalties.

"It's this American dream," said Bernd Eisenbichler, the U.S. team's high-performance director. "…In the end, he has proved he has the potential to belong on the podium. It's super."

Russell's was one of only two clean shooting performances on the day.

"I haven't been this excited about racing since I was 14," Russell said afterward. "It feels like -- I just can't keep the grin off my face. It is everything I wanted this sport to be."

Doc Patton can handle it

The months have passed now since Doc Patton ran into Harry Double-A at the world track championships in Daegu. Doc crumpled immediately to the track, felled as if by Ray Lewis. No wonder. Britain's Harry Aikines-Aryeetey is indeed built like an NFL linebacker. Doc's collarbone was separated in the collision. And the American men, once again, were out of the 4x100 relay. 2008 -- out. 2009 -- out. 2011 -- out. Doc has been not just a part of each of those relays. He has arguably been the story in each of those relays.

Doc is better now, physically, his bone healed. His psyche, too. He is back home in Texas, training hard. And if there is redemption in this world, if there is justice -- perhaps no one in the United States would be more deserving to stand atop the medal stand this summer in London than Darvis "Doc" Patton.

The man has been through his trials.

That has gained him perspective.

It has also given him, at age 34, wisdom.

"I've made that walk [off the track] three times," he said. "It doesn't get any better."

To be clear: Doc has loads of talent. He made the 2008 Olympic 100 final. He won silver in the Paris 2003 world championships 200. In the 4x100 relay, he won silver in the Athens 2004 Games and gold in both the 2007 Osaka and Paris 2003 world championships.

In Daegu, the Americans -- despite the fact that both Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake were running for the Jamaicans -- seriously believed beforehand they could steal a win, Doc said.

"On paper you maybe had to give them the nod," he acknowledged. "But in the relays, if we could put pressure on them, anything can happen. We lined up on the track thinking we were going to walk away with the gold."

And then -- as he wrote on his blog, "That just happened. Again."

Doc -- remember, he's from Texas -- went on to draw a parallel on his blog to Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, and the art of putting an interception behind you to focus on the possibility of a touchdown:

"… 'The absolute beauty of sport is that it's unscripted.' You have to learn how to improvise, rehearse, come back for the next show and do it all over again and again. I've had time for my tears and my anger and my frustration. I'm done with that. Are you?"

Beyond which, Doc has since had way, way, way more to deal with. Doc and his wife, Crystal, are the proud parents of a little girl, Dakota. When Doc came home from South Korea, he was met by a big group of family and friends. Crystal was pregnant again.

Then, though, she miscarried. He has written about this, too, on his blog. He said in an interview that when they went to the doctor's office and there was no heartbeat when there should have been one it was "the loudest silence I ever heard in my life."

Doc is now training hard, and without fear. He and two-time world 200-meter bronze medalist Wallace Spearmon, among others, are part of a training group that runs the stadium at the University of Texas at Arlington each Monday -- they call it "Butt Lock Monday" because that's what happens to their backsides after they're done, it's that grueling. (Watch some of it here.)

Doc welcomes your comments, your criticisms, your ignorant belief -- should you still subscribe to it -- that he is somehow a jinx, a pox on the relay.

Yes, yes, yes. He dropped the stick in 2008 in Beijing, in a pass with Tyson Gay. The 2009 Berlin team was DQ'd after an improper pass, Doc to Shawn Crawford, just before the allowable zone instead of safely inside it. And then the 2011 crash.

Feel free to stand up and ask him, Doc, if you qualify for the 2012 team and they pick you, dude -- are you, like, bad luck?

"I haven't forgotten about Beijing and Berlin. I have messed up plenty of relays in my day. But I have put it behind me. If I make the team and I am in the [relay] pool," he said, "I am ready to face that.

"I will normally do a little laugh. I will tell them the reason I am on the relay, the reason I have been chosen to be on the team -- yes, I have had failures and I have had mistakes -- but I deserve to be there. And they trust me to know I get the stick around.

"Mistakes happen. They happened on the biggest stage in track and field. But they are not going to stop me. I am going to go for the United States of America, and I intend to go."

Go, go Indigo

The team the United States will send to the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria, which begin next week, is dominated -- logically enough -- by teenagers from locales like Utah, Colorado and Minnesota. Places where it's cold or there are big mountains or that are hockey hotbeds.

Of the 57-member U.S. team, there's one name -- just one -- on the roster from California and, at that, not from a mountain village but Manhattan Beach, the epitome of the surf-style lifestyle in L.A.

Meet Indigo Monk.

Indigo is such a good surfer that she had to decide whether to stay in public school and be on the surf team -- really, they have a surf team at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach -- or pursue her 2014 Olympic dream and surf, as it were, on snow.

Indigo competes in -- what else -- snowboarding.

Slopestyle, to be precise -- the Olympic world's newly approved variant of boarding in which riders do tricks and rip through rails and bumps and other features rather than executing jumps and spins in the halfpipe. She finds it more creative.

Understand that Indigo comes from a hugely creative family.

Her mom, Kat, is an accomplished photographer widely recognized for her work especially in the beach cities -- Manhattan, Hermosa, Redondo -- and, truth be told, well beyond. Kat works with her husband, Drew Heidreich, a digital designer.

Indigo will turn 17 on Thursday. When she was born, she was named Indigo because, well, Kat liked the Indigo Girls' music. To be clear: Indigo is not named for the Indigo Girls themselves. Simply, Kat was inspired by the band's music.

Indigo's middle name is Anaïs. Like Nin.

Indigo gets asked about her first name a lot: "A lot of people ask me if [Indigo] is on my birth certificate. I say, 'Of course it is.' "

She also said, "I love my first name. I wouldn't change it for anything."

Indigo has an older brother, Julian, who's now 19 and a college freshman in San Diego. She started snowboarding when she was just 2, up at Big Bear in the San Bernardino mountains, about two hours east of L.A., trying to keep up with her big brother. By 3, Kat said of her daughter, "She was fully riding."

This is -- and always has -- been the secret to Indigo's mojo: "I was fearless."

At 6, Indigo won an 8-and-under boarder-cross race. Kat said, "We were like, 'Oh, wow, now what do we do?' "

The folks at Roxy, the sportswear company, promptly offered to sponsor Indigo, which they did until she was 13, Kat said.

At 9, Indigo could hit the 40-foot jumps at Mammoth Mountain, up in the Sierras. Kat said that's when she thought her daughter was really talented.

At 10, Indigo won the age-group slopestyle nationals. That, Indigo said, was when she herself thought she might be pretty good.

"That was when my head was the biggest," she said, quickly adding, "Snowboarding has always been a love-hate deal of mine. It makes you feel like a million dollars. And then it kicks your butt."

Or -- in Indigo's case: Her pelvis. Her knee. Her neck. Her left ankle, which is her front foot when she rides. All of these have been broken or otherwise hurt.

She also, she said, has had her "fair share of concussions," adding, "These things humble you, they tell you you're not invincible."

Indigo trains now up in Colorado from December to April. She made the Youth Games team with her performance in contests at the end of last season. "It was crazy that I qualified," she said. "I didn't know anything about it."

She added, "It all still surreal to me. I don't know how to explain it. It's a really big deal to represent America. For snowboarding, it's a great honor. It's overwhelming. To be honest, all the Youth Olympic stuff that we're getting, how important everything is, how official it is … I'm really excited more than anything."

So is Kat, who is going to Austria, too. Expect lots of pictures. Really good pictures.

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."