2010 Winter Olympics: Vonn strikes gold

WHISTLER, British Columbia — It was not a perfect ski race. But for the most accomplished female skier in U.S. history, it was a perfectly wonderful moment.

Lindsey Vonn slid to a stop in the finish area of the women's downhill race Wednesday morning and turned to the scoreboard see if her best, on this day, was enough to capture the one title that still eluded her — Olympic champion.

"I was just thinking, 'I hope I did it! I hope I did it! I

hope it was fast!' But honestly, I wasn't sure. I knew Julia (Mancuso, her U.S. teammate) had a good run and I knew I had to be nearly perfect to beat it. And my run wasn't perfect, by any means. It was definitely an aggressive run, but I definitely had some mistakes."

And when her name flashed across the top of the scoreboard, she threw her fist into the air and fell to the ground yelling, "Yes! Yes!"

"I saw my name No. 1 and I was completely overwhelmed," said Vonn, who won the downhill race with a time of 1:44.19. Mancuso won silver with a time of 1:44.75. "It's one of the best feelings I've ever had in my life."

It was a moment that Vonn herself doubted she'd have just a week ago, after a severe bruise to her shin left her wondering if she'd even be able to strap on a ski boot, let alone navigate an icy race course at 100 mph.

"I put a ski boot on in the hotel and I can tell you, it was excruciating," Vonn said earlier in the week.

The Minnesota native who now lives in Vail, Colo., called the shin injury "the most painful" of her career, which incidentally has been riddled with injuries, setbacks and disappointments. She said she was not in a good place mentally and acknowledged the worst was a possibility — she would be unable to ski in any race in the 2010 Games.

"It's been a really tough couple of weeks," she said. "Since my injury, pretty much having your Olympic dreams crushed, and then fighting back from it, doing therapy and getting healthy."

This was, after all, supposed to be her time.

Mancuso laid down what looked like an unbeatable time, and injuries have hampered her so much that she hadn't been on a podium in two years. And then there was Vonn.

So consistent, she's smashed record after record on the way to winning the World Cup title, as well as the World Championships last season. Her success in the last two years had almost erased the pain of crashing so severely in Torino in 2006 that she needed to be hospitalized.