Countless hours of coverage in NBC's 2010 Olympic countdown [Updated]

Want to know why the International Olympic Committee immediately backed NBC when it became angry over the prospect of a U.S. Olympic Network?

Yes, the $5.7-billion NBC paid for U.S. broadcast rights to the Summer and Winter games from 2000 through 2012 had something to do with it. So when NBC was angry the U.S. Olympic Committee did not cut a deal with its "mini'' Olympic network, Universal Sports, the IOC told the USOC to cease and desist on the launch of its own planned network for the immediate future.

But there is another reason why the IOC loves its U.S. rights-holder, and that will start to be evident Nov. 4 when NBC launches its "Countdown to Vancouver,'' 100 days before the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Games.

The IOC wants to drum up interest in both the next Olympic Games and the idea of the Olympics.

Never has a U.S. broadcaster committed to an effort of the scope that NBC has planned to promote both its own upcoming Olympic coverage and the Olympics in general.

Using all its broadcast platforms, including NBC, Universal Sports, MSNBC, CNBC and the Weather Channel, NBC will air more than 1,250 hours of pre-Olympic winter sports competition, plus a variety of other Olympic-related segments beginning with the Nov. 4 "Today" show.

That night there will also be a prime-time Olympic segment across all the networks featuring U.S. Olympic champions Shaun White (snowboard) and Apolo Anton Ohno (short track speedskating) and the designated star-to-be of the 2010 Winter Games, alpine skier Lindsey Vonn.

[Updated 4:45 p.m. Tuesday] Expect NBC to give Vonn the Michael Phelps treatment as she goes after medals in several events. The difference is skiing is so much less predictable than swimming that no one would dare suggest Vonn should win multiple gold medals, even if she is the favorite in downhill, Super-G and combined. (An earlier version of this article said: The difference is skiing is no much less predictable than swimming that no one would dare suggest Vonn should win multiple gold medals, even if she is the favorite in downhill, Super-G and combined.)

The things Vonn can't control, like wind gusts that might hit during her run but affect none of the other skiers (which is entirely possible), mean her superior ability can be negated. That's just the inherent injustice of the sport, which is why skiers chant the mantra that the season-long World Cup is a better reflection of an athlete's prowess.

Vonn opened the 2009-10 World Cup season last Saturday with a solid ninth in giant slalom, her weakest event.

You can see plenty of Vonn on the NBC pre-Olympic event coverage, since it will broadcast (on NBC Sports, Universal Sports and Universalsports.com), the entire World Cup seasons of alpine skiing, long and short track speedskating, snowboard, bobsled and luge plus some events in freestyle skiing, ski jumping and cross-country skiing; the figure skating Grand Prix series; and the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Beginning Dec. 1, Universal Sports will have a "Countdown to Vancouver'' show every night (5 p.m. Pacific).

And if that's not enough for Olympic and winter sports junkies, nbcolympics.com will be up and running Nov. 4. 

And I will be frequently blogging about things Winter Olympic as well.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Lindsey Vonn figures to be the star of NBC's enormous pre-Olympic and Olympic coverage this winter. Credit: Thomas Vonn  

Lindsey Vonn captures super-G title too

Lindsey Vonn won the super-G season finale today at the World Cup finals in Sweden to clinch the title, becoming the first American woman to do so.

She now has three crystal globes this season, tying the U.S. record set by Phil Mahre in 1982. On Wednesday, the 24-year-old Vonn won the downhill title and the World Cup overall title.

In today's race, Vonn sped down the course in 1 minute, 20.63 seconds.

It was Vonn’s ninth World Cup victory this season, the most for any American -- male or female -- in a single season.

"I was hoping so much that I could win today and get the super-G globe, no American female has ever done that," Vonn told reporters.

-- Debbie Goffa

Photo: Lindsey Vonn kisses her trophy, earned for winning the super-G event in Are, Sweden. Credit: Wolfgang Grebien / GEPA via US Presswire

Vonn looks for new hills to conquer

Lindsey Vonn had a few hours to enjoy being the first American woman to win two World Cup alpine skiing overall titles -- and to take the all-time lead among U.S. women with 46 podium finishes, one more than Tamara McKinney -- before she was being asked about her next goals.

But that's OK. Vonn, of Vail, Colo., had already planned to intensify her grueling training schedule so she can be prepared for the Vancouver Olympics next February.

"In the summer I don’t have a life. I'm in the gym six to eight hours a day, six days a week," she said during a conference call from Are, Sweden, where she had won the final World Cup downhill of the season.

"I don’t get to do the nomal stuff most people do. I give all my time for skiing. I've worked my whole life to be at this point of my career. I didn’t go to prom and didn’t go to regular high school for a few years.

"I’m willing to sacrifice even more to take the next step, so this summer I'm going to work twice as hard as last summer to prepare for these Games. And I hope it pays off and I hope I’m able to accomplish my dreams."

Vonn had clinched the World Cup downhill title and needed only an eighth-place finish today to mathematically clinch the overall lead. She won today's race in 1 minute, 42.49 seconds, .40 ahead of Germany's Maria Riesch.

That was a poetic ending if ever there was one because she had also won the season-opening downhill in Lake Louise, Canada.

With three races left at the finals, Vonn has 1,688 points in the overall standings. Riesch is second with 1,299 and Anja Paerson of Sweden is third with 990.

Vonn, known as Lindsey Kildow until her 2007 marriage to ski racer Thomas Vonn, has 21 career World Cup victories. That's third among Americans, behind Bode Miller's 31 and Phil Mahre's 27.

But an Olympic gold medal is also on Vonn's wish list. She was sixth in the combined at the 2002 Games as a teenager and in 2006 finished a miraculous eighth in the downhill after taking a nasty fall during a training run and spending the night in the hospital.

She will rank among the favorites in several discplines in Vancouver, and she said she's ready for the test.

"I have been thinking a lot about the Olympics, especially the last few weeks, and I feel like I am a lot more prepared this time around than I was in the past," she said. "It’s been a challenge at times to be able to manage all the press and media over the last two years, especially after winning the overall last year, that’s made me better able to handle those situations.

"I definitely know there’s going to be a lot of pressures and a lot of expectations in these Olympics, but I feel like I’m ready to handle it. Or I hope I’m ready to handle it, at least.

"The Olympics, they mean everything. The overall titles have been incredible and something you work incredibly hard for, but the Olympics are very special. Americans only watch those two weeks during the Olympics and they probably don’t see our sport any other time in the four years until the next Olympics. So I feel like this is my time to show America skiing, and how extreme and cool skiing is.

"It really is a great sport. It may not be snowboarding or the X Games, but it’s still very extreme and I hope these Olympics give me a chance to show everybody who I am and show them the sport that I love."

-- Helene Elliott

Lindsey Vonn captures downhill title, overall World Cup title

American Lindsey Vonn today ignored the Swedish fog to win the final downhill race of the season and clinch the overall World Cup title for the second year in a row.

The 24-year-old Vonn is the first American woman to win two overall World Cup crowns, and she did it in fine fashion, speeding down the course in Are, Sweden, in 1 minute, 42.49 seconds to capture her eighth downhill race of the season and her second downhill title.

Only one other American, Picabo Street, has won consecutive downhill titles. Street accomplished that in 1995 and 1996.

Vonn won the season-opening downhill in early December at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada.

"It’s a really special moment in my life," she told reporters afterward. "I give my whole life for the sport and to be able to win something like this for a second time in a row, it means a lot to me. It’s why I work hard, it’s what I live for and it’s special to have been able to put my own mark in the history books."

Maria Riesch of Germany finished 0.40 behind Vonn, and also finished second overall. Austria’s Renate Goetschl was third, 1.26 back.

LAT's Helene Elliott will have more on Vonn later today on latimes.com/sports.

-- Debbie Goffa

Top photo: Lindsey Vonn on her way to winning the Women's World Cup Downhill title in Are, Sweden. Credit: Elvis Piazzi / Associated Press

Inset photo: Vonn poses with the World Cup trophy. Credit: Wolfgang Grebien / GEPA via US Presswire

Vonn moves onto Picabo's street again

Another day, another career achievement for Lindsey Vonn.

This one will be special to the 24-year-old Minnesotan because it puts again her in the company of her childhood ski idol, Picabo Street.

Today in Bulgaria, despite a modest 12th-place finish in a World Cup downhill race won by Austria's Andrea Fischbacher, Vonn clinched a second straight season title in the downhill. Only other U.S. skier to do that?  Street in 1995-96.

A year ago, Vonn topped Street as the U.S. skier with most career World Cup downhill wins.

Vonn had finished in the top three in the previous five World Cup races, giving her a firm grip on a second straight overall title.  She has a 336-point lead over Maria Riesch of Germany with seven races left.

Vonn also is in contention for the season titles in slalom and Super-G, although she would need a collapse by Riesch in the final two slaloms to have a shot at that crown.

-- Philip Hersh

Photo: Lindsey Vonn carves her way to a second straight World Cup downhill season title today in Bansko, Bulgaria. Credit: Marco Trovati / Associated Press

Going, going ... Vonn: Skier hits another record blast

Lindsey Vonn skiing into the record books Sunday.  (Damien  Meyer / Getty Images) 

Now there is no doubt, statistical or otherwise, that Lindsey Vonn is the greatest female skier in U.S. history.

Sunday in Tarvisio, Italy, Vonn won the 19th World Cup race of her still-young career, moving ahead of Tamara McKinney as the all-time U.S. leader in that category.

"It sounds really weird to me,'' Vonn said.  "I don't see myself as a record setter and actually never thought it was possible to pass a legend like Tamara.''

The win in Super-G completed a stunning weekend for Vonn, 24, as she took a seemingly insurmountable lead in the race for a second straight World Cup overall title, the crown many skiers consider the pinnacle of their sport.

Vonn was second in both Friday's super combined and Saturday's downhill. Sunday's victory gave her 12 podium finishes this year, two more than last season, when she became the second U.S. woman -- after McKinney in 1983 -- to win the overall title.

With 43 such top-three finishes, she still trails McKinney by two in that category.

Vonn has been quick to put her achievements into modest perspective when she compares them to the leading skiers of all time, including Austria's Renate Goitschel, who has 46 wins and 109 podium finishes in what may be her final season on the circuit.

"I'm so proud of what I've been able to accomplish, and I look at what Goitschel has done, and it's humbling,''  Vonn said after winning her second gold medal at the world championships earlier this month.  "It's something that keeps you grounded.''

Since her first win in 2004, Vonn has triumphed in every World Cup discipline but giant slalom.  All McKinney's victories, from 1981 through 1987, came in giant slalom and slalom during an era when polyvalence was not as common in the sport.

--Philip Hersh