The U.S. Ski Team has been finalized and of all the athletes it looks as if Lindsey Vonn is the one sure thing when it comes to medals at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.
Vonn continued her ascension into the upper echelon of women’s skiers Saturday at Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, notching her eighth win of the season and career 30th Alpine World Cup victory.
The most amazing accomplishment is that she has won all five downhills this season.
Vonn’s win tied her with Croatian great Janica Kostelic at eighth on the women’s all-time wins list. She has three wins and eight career podiums in Cortina.
Also on the Alpine Ski Team, but no sure bet at a medal, is Bode Miller, who is making a second run at an Olympic medal after failing miserably in his last try in Turin.
Veteran ski racers Casey Puckett and Daron Rahlves will represent the USA in the debut of ski cross in Vancouver. It will be Puckett’s fifth Olympics and the fourth trip for Rahlves, a 2001 world champion in alpine super G. Both were former U.S. Alpine Ski Team racers who have had strong success in ski cross on the World Cup and in the X Games.
Rahlves will be competing this week in the X Games, while Puckett is resting a shoulder injury but is expected to be ready to go in Vancouver.
Mount Snow rider Kelly Clark earned a spot in her third Olympics last week by winning the Grand Prix halfpipe event at Mammoth Mountain. Clark made her first Olympics appearance in 2002, winning gold in Salt Lake City. In 2006 she again earned a place on the US team for the Turin Olympics, this time finishing fourth behind two fellow Americans.
The moguls team is headlined by 2009 season-long World Cup champion Hannah Kearney. Kearney, who qualified in the Olympic Trials a month ago, leads a strong group of women that includes first time Olympian Heather McPhie, 2002 Olympic silver medalist Shannon Bahrke and Michelle Roark, who rounds out the team based on her third in Deer Valley.
The 2009 world champion Patrick Deneen leads the men’s moguls squad following his victory in the Olympic Trials last month. Rookie Bryon Wilson took advantage of a pair of seconds in the season opener while 2005 world champion Nate Roberts (Park City, Utah) picked up a third that same weekend in Finland to make the team. Michael Morse from Duxbury, Mass., rounds out the team.