Sam Donnellon: Vonn crashes, derailing push for second gold

WHISTLER, British Columbia - Shin happens.

Now, you wonder: Will it keep happening?

Will Lindsey Vonn's quest for multiple medals - let's face it, multiple golds - be derailed by a heavily bruised right shin that likely led to her demise in yesterday's super-combined?

"It hurts," Vonn said after a crash in her second race, halfway to the finish, cost the American skier a likely second gold in as many days. "I got up this morning, and it hurt the worst it has since I started skiing on it again."

Tomorrow, Vonn is scheduled to compete in the super-G, which is among her better races - when she is healthy. The women's giant slalom is scheduled for Wednesday. Today is a day off for the women, and Vonn will use every minute to quell as much barking as possible from that right dog of hers.

The second-to-last skier yesterday, Vonn was poised to finish with the best time of the two-race competition when her right ski clipped a gate halfway through her slalom run, crashing her way off the medals podium and into more uncertainty.

Uncertainty for both her and those listening to her. One moment, she sounded like a skier uncertain of whether she would make any of the three events remaining. The next moment, she was saying, "The shin wasn't the reason I didn't finish the race today.

"I just hooked a tip," she said. "It happens in ski racing all the time . . . That's life. I'm still happy with my gold medal yesterday."

A theory: With so many skiers crashing, some horrifically, Vonn might have been wary of connecting her spill to her bad leg. There has been plenty of eye rolling by now about the shin, even a few references to Curt Schilling and his bloody sock. But she clearly was in pain as she stepped out of her skis, and, as she fulfilled the countless media requests afterward, someone handed her ski poles to lean on.

Will she race Saturday?

"I have to see how it feels," she said at one point. "I don't want to say that I'm racing or make any assumptions before I know exactly how I'm feeling."

Her concern is obvious. So, too, at times, are the dents in her confidence. She is clearly the world's best and most versatile skier, but before Wednesday, she was known more for big-moment busts and bad breaks than for big moments. Her husband, Thomas Vonn, has been credited with helping her improve in that regard, and when he speaks of the shin, it is often in that context.

"The mental part," U.S. coach Jim Tracy said, "has a lot to do with these events."

Consider the podium yesterday. Julia Mancuso has two silver medals today, because she did not let crash-friendly conditions affect her aggression.

"Big-game skier," Tracy said again yesterday after Mancuso had one of her best races in one of her lesser disciplines.

Under the radar, Vonn said.

"She's coming in here as an underdog," Vonn said. "No one's

really expecting her to do anything, and that helps. When you don't have any pressure, that helps you ski aggressively. It's definitely a lot different when you have everyone looking at you and expecting you to do things. It's not as easy."

Maybe not, but Mancuso isn't making the kind of coin Vonn is, either. She also had obstacles to overcome just to get here. She has spent most of the 4 years since she won a gold medal in Turin hurt and frustrated by equipment rules changes that seemed to favor bigger skiers such as Vonn and yesterday's gold-medal winner, German Maria Riesch. It's been a grind, she said, and it's taxed her bubbly manner, which explains why, after finishing her slalom run yesterday afternoon, she screamed, fell on her back and kicked her skis in the air wildly, much to the delight of a very pro-U.S. crowd.

At that point, the fans sensed another very special American day on Franz's Downhill. With only Riesch and Vonn left to ski, Mancuso had moved into first place ahead of Sweden's Anja Paerson, who just the day before had crashed so badly, she had to be helped from the course.

Paerson won the bronze medal yesterday, then wowed finish-line workers by peeling away her racing clothes to show them multiple bruises, including one that extended down more than half her body.

Riesch followed Paerson on Wednesday. Affected by the severity of the crash and the length of the delay, she took an oddly conservative run and finished eighth.

Yesterday, after finishing just behind Vonn in the morning downhill, Riesch, in her words, "went full gas" in the afternoon slalom. Vonn was next.

"I definitely was risking," she said. "I probably could have done a safe run and probably won a bronze medal. But I didn't want to do that.

"This is the Olympics. You want to win."

How much? Enough to crash away a medal yesterday. Enough to make a sore and damaged body more sore, more damaged.

It happens, Vonn said.

"I just wish," she said, "that it wasn't happening at the Olympic Games." *

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