The words ‘courage’ and ‘toughness’ and ‘guts’ are thrown around routinely in pro sports, but all those apply in spades to Lindsey Vonn and her co-competitors. The unbelievable speeds they generate on skis on seemingly vertical surfaces and slopes of ice has to be witnessed to be comprehended.
TV robs the viewer of that perception, cameras pan along with the skier and make it seem like they’re crawling sometimes. It isn’t easy to attend one of these events slopeside for the average fan, you normally have to ski to a viewing area where you can catch them mid-course, mid-flight really. If you get the chance though, it’s almost like a hallucination, they blow by you faster than a vehicle on a highway would, there’s almost a shockwave when they speed by.
I’ve ridden the Whistler and Lake Louise downhill courses, not while they’re properly closed and fenced, but as a succession of runs, and yeah, you’re dumping speed the whole way, scraping your edges, there’s no way you can carve more than three turns before you’re a hazard to others or yourself or the surrounding timber.
For those who don’t know, the way they prepare the courses nowadays is to turn the surface into ice, they literally douse the whole run with fire hoses, daily. Snow falls on top of that, they groom it to pack it down, and hose it down some more. Races get cancelled when it snows, due to, uh, too much snow, the ruts the first few racers generate make it impossible for the following competitors to ski safely. In 2010, the entire run(s) for the Olympic downhills were closed on Whistler from the start of the season to February, they just babied them and groomed them and hosed them down all winter long, it was glare ice ten feet deep.
I remember Rob Boyd in the mid-90s, when the Whistler downhill was being held in November, a time of year when B.C. is usually socked by storm systems from the Pacific, being interviewed after another race had been cancelled due to too much snow, and the course workers being unable to keep up. The TV host tried to make it into a tragedy, and Rob just grinned and said no, it was terrific, all that snow, for everyone who loves skiing and riding, he and his buddies were going to go up and play in the powder once he changed into his non-race gear.
Knowing all this, to return to ski racing after suffering a crash and debilitating injury and months of rehab is even more commendable. That Ms. Vonn did so repeatedly, and returned to her previous level of performance, is amazing.
Congratulations are in order for Ms. Vonn, and I wish her good luck in her post-racing career and endeavours.
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