Lindsey Vonn's Injury Tempers Huge Olympics Expectations | Thomas Vonn | Lindsey Vonn Husband | Lindsey Vonn Thomas Vonn Video | Lindsey Vonn Thomas

Lindsey Vonn, the star of the U.S. ski team, is in crisis again at the Olympics. This time, though, her team within a team, the so-called Vonntourage, is ready to roll.

From the time Vonn suffered an excruciatingly painful deep tissue bruise on her right shin in a slalom training crash Feb. 2 in Austria, her team of physical and emotional supporters worked around the clock to try to salvage medal opportunities for Vonn, who has been marketed for months as a major star of the Vancouver Games.


"It was instant crisis," says Thomas Vonn, her husband, manager and unofficial coach. "When she got hurt, everything changed."

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Instead of flying back to the United States as scheduled Feb. 4, the Vonntourage remained in Austria — in and around Innsbruck— for three days as Vonn received various types of therapy and attempted to maintain her conditioning.

The Vonns and their staff flew to Salt Lake City on Feb. 7 and then, two days later, to Vancouver, where on Wednesday they revealed the injury, throwing the international news media into high gear.

"We wanted to keep quiet to avoid a firestorm until we knew whether or not there would be a firestorm," Vonn's husband says.

What Team Vonn did and continues to do to prop up Lindsey physically and emotionally is the latest example of the kind of special attention Vonn has received that has taken her from being very good to being the best in the world.

"There isn't any athlete on the World Cup (circuit) that has anything close to what I have," Vonn says.

That might be why on Thursday, Vonn was able to ski for the first time since the crash and, though the women's downhill training was canceled because of snow and fog, she took a successful warm-up run and was thinking she might not have to skip any races. She was scheduled to run all five events.

"I was happy to be back on snow today," Vonn said. "My shin was still very painful, but I feel like the injury is finally progressing. I am always disappointed when a training run is canceled, but in this situation I definitely welcome the extra day to heal."

U.S. skier Stacey Cook crashed before the training run was canceled and was taken by helicopter off the mountain but suffered no serious injuries and is expected to be able to compete.

Weather permitting, Vonn is expected to attempt training runs today and Saturday.

Vonn's first scheduled race is the women's super combined Sunday, though that could be pushed because of expected weather delays. Her second scheduled race is Wednesday's women's downhill, in which she is considered an overwhelming gold medal favorite.

If she can fully recover, Vonn is favored to win two gold medals — downhill and super-G — and possibly add a third medal in super combined, further cementing her status as a skier for the ages.

This didn't really happen for Vonn until the 2007-08 World Cup season, when she went from being the best skier on the U.S. team to having the best team on the U.S. ski team, traveling the World Cup with not just her husband and her ski technician but also a physical trainer and a physiotherapist devoted to her.

Vonn, 25, of Vail, Colo., has become a juggernaut on the World Cup tour, dominating the speed events as she barrels down the world's mountains toward a potential third consecutive World Cup overall title.



Source: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/vancouver/alpine/2010-02-11-lindsey-vonn-cover_N.htm

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