What saved her, she thinks, is not her familiarity with the course — Vonn has won eight World Cup events at the venue since 2004, consistently dominating its demanding downhill — her fitness, or even her innate mental toughness so much as pure reflex, a instantaneous physical response that she credits to a new training regimen this past offseason. Vonn intended her newfound emphasis on agility to improve performance in technical disciplines like the giant slalom, but it paid off in the downhill in ways she still doesn’t fully understand.

Coming into the technical middle of the course on her second run, Vonn was carrying more speed than was safe. As she dove into the turn called “Coaches’ Corner” at the top of a precipitous headwall, her outside ski — the one that carries most of the load in a turn — skipped on an unseen bump and slid out (seen here at the :50 mark).

Instantly, Vonn was “basically laid out” on her side, as she describes it, rocketing at 70 miles an hour toward a painful and likely dangerous collision with the snow fence on the side of the course. Then, somehow, she regained her feet and made the turn, recovering for a second-place finish to her close friend and chief rival, Maria Riesch of Germany.

“I don’t know how I got back up,” Vonn told Wired.com in an exclusive interview about her near-disaster. “I went down so quick, and I remember thinking, Get back up! Get back up!” Normally, even a fierce effort to recover in that situation would be futile.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time you’re in the fence and probably injured,” she said. “At those speeds, it goes bad really quickly. Somehow I got back on my feet and back in my tuck.”

Vonn was saved, she thinks, by pure instinct. “I honestly have no idea” what happened, she says. Vonn doesn’t even remember how she got her skis back underneath her.

But Vonn is sure the recovery is linked to what she did this past summer with her coach/husband Thomas Vonn and trainer Martin Hager. Vonn is formidable in the speed disciplines like downhill, which require superior athleticism and control and a little bit of the gambler’s attitude. But the technical disciplines like slalom and giant slalom, where precise lines and reaction times are paramount, have been a vulnerability.

Although she just finished her most successful season ever with a third straight World Cup title and two Olympic medals in Vancouver, including a gold in the downhill, Vonn says she feels more pressure now than ever.

Some of it is external, as rivals like Riesch continue to improve. To defend her World Cup title, Vonn knew she needed to make bigger strides in the slalom and giant slalom. “I needed to improve my quickness and agility,” she said of her offseason strategizing. “My reaction time needed to be faster.”

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Authors: Joe Lindsey

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