Vonn gambles big - and loses big

WHISTLER, British Columbia - A few hundred yards south of where she had burst out of the gate like someone hell-bent for immortality, Lindsey Vonn lay sprawled in the sun-sprinkled snow, America's idol suddenly its fallen angel.

The leader after yesterday morning's downhill and the final competitor in the afternoon slalom that concluded the women's super-combined, Vonn tumbled over a gate midway down the Whistler Creekside course.

Even before a cast-off ski had landed atop her, the dream of gold medals on consecutive days at these 2010 Winter Olympics was over.

The super-combined played out just as its creators must have imagined, with the world's best at its two elements, Vonn in the downhill and Germany's Maria Riesch in the slalom, the final two skiers on the hill.

But while the penultimate run by Riesch, who was second to Vonn in the earlier downhill, was both fearless and flawless, Vonn's run was reckless and ended prematurely.

Riesch captured the gold medal with a combined time of 2 minutes, 9.14 seconds. American Julia Mancuso, silver medalist to Vonn in Wednesday's downhill, clocked a 2:10.08 and got a second silver. Sweden's Anja Paerson, whose frightening crash had eliminated her in Wednesday's race, took the bronze in 2:10.19.

Vonn led Riesch by 0.33 seconds after the downhill. It was, in retrospect, too snug a margin for anything but an all-out attack by Vonn in what is not her strongest discipline. Her best finish in the three super-combined events she had raced this season was a second, to Riesch.

"I knew I would have to take some risks if I was going to win," said Vonn, who has been bothered by a right-shin injury since a fall in Europe on Feb. 2. "Maybe it was more than I could handle right now.

"I was disappointed, but I went down fighting. I knew Maria and Julia had good runs, so I had to give it everything I had. In slalom, anything goes."

Mancuso, third entering the afternoon session, had taken the lead from Paerson with a time of 45.12 in the slalom. She dropped on her back when she saw a "1" posted next to her name and kicked her skis into the air with delight.

Though overshadowed by her better-known teammate, Mancuso, a gold medalist in the giant slalom at Turin, now has won three Alpine-skiing medals, more than any U.S. woman ever. She is also the first American woman to medal in a combined event since 1948.

"It's still really hard for me to believe," Mancuso said. "Two Olympic medals is more than I could have imagined."

She, too, lost out on a second gold when Riesch blew her back into second place, the German's time of 44.65 giving her an advantage of 0.96 seconds over Mancuso.

Then came Vonn, the glamorous face of NBC-TV's Olympic coverage, a skier with a real shot at multiple gold here. If she were going to triumph again, she knew she would have to be within 0.32 seconds of Riesch's slalom time.

In the slalom, and in the end, it was too much to ask, even for the world's best female skier.

Her fall capped a delicious little drama in the gorgeous Canadian Rockies. The Minnesota native had flown out of the gate onto a course that had seen the previous 29 women make few mistakes.

It was the kind of easy layout that made Riesch, ranked No. 1 in the world in the slalom, that much more confident.

"I knew that the setting wasn't that difficult," she said. "It was a course I could attack. I went full gas."

Vonn did, too. At the first checkpoint, she was 0.07 seconds ahead of Riesch. But she lost time, and by the second checkpoint had fallen 0.18 seconds behind.

Riesch was watching at the bottom of the hill when, midway down, amid squeals from the big crowd gathered on the Games' most spectacular weather day yet, Vonn caught her right leg on a gate pole and bounded helplessly off the course.

Later, the blond American said her shin bothered her more in the slalom, with all of its turns and shifts, than in the full-speed-ahead downhill.

"It hurts so bad," she said. "It's one thing to do the downhill, but the super-combined is really tough on my shin. I tried as hard as I could."

Her next race will be tomorrow's super-G. The downhill-giant slalom hybrid is one of her strongest events.

"You can never count Lindsey out," Riesch said. "I'm thankful I could win today."