Heading into last year's Aspen Winternational World Cup ski races, Vail's Lindsey Vonn was coming off a downhill win in Canada and was expected to dominate that speed event in the only women's races in the U.S. each season.

At this year's races (Saturday and Sunday on Aspen Mountain), there is no downhill, just the two technical events of slalom and giant slalom, but expectations might be even higher for the winningest American speed skier of all time.

That's because Vonn, who en route to winning the overall World Cup title last season captured her 10th career downhill victory - she passed Picabo Street and Daron Rahlves on the all-time U.S. list - is coming off a shocking win in the slalom opener Nov. 15 in Levi, Finland.

Vonn, who last week suffered a bruised knee during a training run, was cleared Wednesday to race at Aspen.

"There's no way I could have predicted my first win (this season) would be a slalom," Vonn said of Finland, where she earned her 14th career World Cup victory, four short of Tamara McKinney's American women's mark. "It feels pretty good to go back to my roots and know that I can ski well again in slalom."

Those roots trace back to Buck Hill, Minn., a "mountain" with a whopping 300-vertical-foot drop, where concentrating on tight turns and technical expertise was really the only option.

Need for speed

Growing up training in the legendary Erich Sailer's ski camps, Vonn (formerly Kildow) didn't develop her penchant for speed until her family moved to Vail in the 1990s.

In becoming a dominant force in the speed events of downhill and super-G, Vonn, 24, has won four straight downhills at Lake Louise, Alberta, a glider's mountain that doesn't put a premium on technical turns. The circuit heads there after Aspen.

"If you were to ask me when Vonn would get her first win of the year, everyone would say Lake Louise, but she totally deserved this," slalom coach Trevor Wagner said of Vonn's surprise victory in Finland. "Halfway down, she shot way out and was completely off the gate, but then threw it into another gear and hammered all the way to the finish."

Last season in Aspen, coming off a downhill win at Lake Louise and domination of both training runs in downhill, Vonn had been all but handed the downhill win.

Instead, she wound up fourth, .05 of a second off the podium (top three) and only half a second from the win, which was claimed by Canada's Britt Janyk. Vonn was 27th in the slalom at Aspen last year.

Vail's Sarah Schleper, another Ski Club Vail product who attended Sailer's Buck Hill camps, has been a tech specialist her whole career.

Her only World Cup win came in slalom, but she isn't surprised by Vonn's ability to switch from speed to tech and get a win.

Schleper attributes it to Vonn's newfound mental toughness after getting married to former racer Thomas Vonn before last season.

"(Vonn) struggled a lot mentally in the past," said Schleper, who points to Vonn's mistake and incredible recovery in Finland. "Something like what happened in Levi in the second run - although she did make a mistake - something more drastic might have happened and it might have knocked her out of the run (in the past). She seems a lot more calm-headed and confident, and she works so hard."

Versatility helps

The greatest American tech skier of all time, Phil Mahre, who won three straight overall titles from 1981 to 1983, said a speed-event skier had no chance at winning the overall title during his era and Vonn's shot at defending her overall title (Mahre is the only American to successfully do so) greatly is enhanced by her return to her tech roots.

"Lindsey started her career as a tech skier coming from the Midwest," Mahre said. "In today's World Cup, you need to be a speed skier in order to win the overall. Downhill, super-G and GS are the keys to winning the title.

"If you have the ability to ski slalom, then your chances greatly increase. Back in our time, speed skiers had no chance of the overall as super-G didn't exist. Tech skiers willing to ski downhill were the odds-on favorites to win the title."

The overall title is considered the greatest achievement in ski racing because racers accumulate points throughout an entire season of consistently excellent skiing.

The only other Americans to have accomplished the feat are Bode Miller (2005 and 2008) and McKinney (1983).

Miller has the most wins for an American (31), with Mahre second (27), McKinney third (18) and Vonn fourth (14).

Only Miller and Vonn still are active on the World Cup circuit, and at 31, Miller is nearing the end of his career.

Vonn really just is getting started at 24, although she competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics at 17, turning in the best result for an American woman (sixth in the combined).

Vonn's mentor, Street, retired after the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. She won gold at the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan, and silver in 1994 at Lillehammer, Norway.

Vonn, who crashed during training at the 2006 Turin Games and was hospitalized, with Street at her side encouraging her to return and compete, finished out of the medals at those Olympics.

She clearly is focused on 2010 and getting an Olympic medal at the Games in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Beyond that, she said she's likely to only try to make it through the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where she would be 29, or maybe hang on for the 2015 World Championships if they're awarded to Vail and Beaver Creek, when she would be 30 - not unreasonable for a ski racer, depending on injuries.

Denver dream

A wild card would be Denver landing the 2018 Winter Olympics, only a realistic possibility if Chicago doesn't get the 2016 Summer Olympics.

But that city's chances are looking better with the election of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as president.

"It's definitely possible," Vonn said of hanging on that long so she could race one more games (this time, likely on home snow at Beaver Creek at age 34).

"It's just that I'd rather not be away from my family, and I want to be 100 percent focused on skiing at the same time. Maybe it's something where if I'm getting to the point where I need to retire, then maybe I just ski right up to the Olympics and kind of do what Picabo did and say that's the last race and call it a day."

By then, she might be closing in on Austrian great Annemarie Moser-Proll's all-time World Cup victory total of 62, but that would require a pace of five victories a season for a decade.

"That's a lot of wins, but you never know," Vonn recently told Vail Beaver Creek Magazine.

"If Denver gets the Olympics and I keep going, it's definitely possible."

Vonn good to go

American women haven't won an Aspen World Cup ski race since the Winternational resumed there in 2000 after a 12-year layoff.

Vail's Lindsey Vonn was fourth in the downhill in Aspen last season, but there will only be a giant slalom and slalom in Aspen this weekend.

Besides that fourth-place finish last season, Vonn has had some success in Aspen but all in speed events. She was seventh in a super-G in 2005 and won a Nor-Am super-G in 2000 at Aspen.

Vonn, recovering from a bruised knee suffered in training last week at Copper Mountain, returned to training this week and Wednesday was cleared to race this weekend.

A dominant speed-event racer and the defending overall World Cup champion who is coming off her only World Cup slalom win (Nov. 15 in Levi, Finland), Vonn was 27th last season in the Aspen slalom, which was won by 2007 overall champion Nicole Hosp of Austria. Hosp was fourth in Levi and is a favorite to defend her Aspen title.

In the giant slalom, Vonn, who was ninth in the GS opener in Soelden, Austria, in October, will compete against another favorite, 2006 Olympic giant slalom gold medalist Julia Mancuso, of Olympic Valley, Calif.

* SCHEDULE

Saturday: Giant slalom, 10 a.m. first run and 1 p.m. second run.

Sunday: Slalom, 10 a.m. first run and 1 p.m. second run.

* COURSE: Both races are on the Strawpile run on Aspen Mountain and are free and open to the public.

* INFORMATION: AspenSnowmass.com.

In the spotlight

An overall World Cup ski racing title, which Lindsey Vonn won last season, arguably is much harder to accomplish than an Olympic medal and will get you into the best restaurants in Europe, but it doesn't typically bring as much fame and fortune in the U.S.

Still, Vonn, 24, who is married to former U.S. racer Thomas Vonn and lives in Park City, Utah, managed to parlay her crystal globe for winning the overall title into a fair amount of recognition in her homeland.

The Ski Club Vail product appeared on NBC's Today show after winning the overall title in Bormio, Italy, in the spring, then did Fox, CNN and ESPN.

A photographer and a writer from The New York Times flew out to her home to do a feature.

Other things to know about Vonn

* In the summer, she was nominated in ESPN's ESPY Awards competition for Best Female Athlete, along with race car driver Danica Patrick and the WNBA's Candace Parker, who won the award. Vonn said it was huge for a ski racer to even be in the mix.

* A tennis player in her spare time, Vonn says on her MySpace page she most would like to meet Roger Federer because he "kicks (butt)!"

* Vonn, who has two brothers and two sisters (three of them triplets), once won a cow as a prize for winning a World Cup race in France.

* Favorite musicians: Jay-Z, All-American Rejects, Coldplay, Madonna, Cassie, Beyonce and Dido.

* Favorite movies, also according to her MySpace page: Wedding Crashers, Zoolander, Gladiator, The Bodyguard and Dodgeball.

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