Lindsey Vonn wins World Cup downhill race at Lake Louise.
On Wednesday, she will get the momentary comfort of a hometown embrace.
Due to too little snow in France, a women's super-G World Cup race scheduled for Val d'Isere will be held instead in Beaver Creek, near Vail, where Vonn's family moved when she was 11.
"I've always wanted to race here, so this is finally my chance," Vonn told reporters in Vail on Monday.
Her only previous time on the Birds of Prey course, which annually hosts a men's super-G World Cup, was as a course-runner for the 1999 world ski championships, when she was 16.
"For me, the hardest thing about this race is just the pressure and trying to do well for the home crowd," Vonn, 27, said of Wednesday's World Cup.
Vonn is making World Cup racing look easy this season, having won four of her first five races. She won her first career giant slalom to start the season - giving her a World Cup victory in every Alpine skiing discipline - then swept three speed events in Lake Louise, Canada, last weekend.
She won both downhill races by more than a second and a half.
"I think I proved to myself, as well as everyone else, this past weekend that I can ski well under the most extreme circumstances," Vonn said. "It's something that I will take with me not just for the rest of the season but for the rest of my career, knowing that I'm capable of overcoming things like that.
"It just gives me more personal strength."
Thomas Vonn, a former U.S. ski team member, was her closest adviser on the World Cup tour and handled many of her logistics. They married in 2007.
"I think this whole season is going to be a great chance for me to look at myself from a different perspective and to really learn more about myself," Vonn said.
Vonn has 45 World Cup wins. A victory at Beaver Creek would be her first on U.S. soil.
"To have a sweep up in Lake Louise was a lot more than I expected, but for me this is exactly what I needed to give me confidence," she said. "Thankfully, we're racing in Beaver Creek, and I couldn't be in a better position. I just hope that I can keep skiing fast and do something for the home crowd."
(Copyright © 2011 USA TODAY)