Lindsey Vonn was named Associated Press Female Athlete

Lindsey Vonn was named Associated Press Female Athlete. Lindsey Vonn Named AP Athlete of the Year Val d’Isere, France - Olympic gold medalist and three-time Audi FIS Alpine World Cup overall champion Lindsey Vonn has been named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for 2010.

nThe announcement on Saturday came on the heels of Vonn’s stunning downhill win in Val d’Isere earlier in the day to regain the World Cup downhill lead. On Sunday Vonn won the super combined in Val d’Isere to take the overall World Cup lead as well. Long-time AP journalist Howard Fendrich, who has covered four Olympic Games, including Vancouver caught up with Vonn earlier in the week for her comments on the award. She is the first skier to be nominated, and therefore awarded the prestigous honor.

Created in 1931, the AP honor is the original Athlete of the Year award in America and is well known for recognizing both female and male athletes since its inception. Vonn received more than double any other nominee.

The awards are voted on annually by a panel of AP sports editors from across the United States. Past winners include Joe DiMaggio (1941), Billy Jean King (1967, 1973), Michael Jordan (1991-93), Lance Armstrong (2002-05) and Serena Williams (2002, 2009).

“Just being nominated means a lot to me but it’s truly an honor to receive the award, especially knowing all the incredible athletes who have come before me to make sports so amazing for fans,” said Vonn. “Honestly, when I found out, I was pretty speechless.”

Twice in the awards history, the panel couldn’t decide on a single athlete and therefore named an entire team. In 1980 it was the men responsible for the Miracle on Ice and again in 1999 when Mia Hamm and company captured the FIFA World Cup in front of 90,000 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

Vonn’s stunning year included capturing a historic first women’s downhill gold medal at the Olympics before adding bronze in super G. She would go on to land an American record 11 World Cup wins in a single season en route to her third consecutive overall and downhill titles. Additionally she defended her title for super G and added a super combined title. To date, her career 35 World Cup wins is the most of any American, male or female.

“I always love the journalists from the AP, I see them every single weekend and they do such a good job telling the story of alpine skiing,” added Vonn. “Win or lose, their stories are always fair. Really, they’re one of the biggest ambassadors of our sport in the world.”

By: First Tracks | Online Media

Lindsey Vonn, Clark Up for Top ESPY Honor

Lindsey Vonn, Clark Up for Top ESPY Honor Los Angeles, CA - Olympic gold medalist alpine skier Lindsey Vonn and fellow gold medalist snowboarder Kelly Clark comprise an unprecedented half of the Female Athlete of the Year ballot for the 2011 ESPY Awards, which air live Wednesday, July 13 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.

The ESPYs are determined entirely by popular vote. The Athlete of the Year category is the highest individual honor for women with Vonn as the incumbent. Her 2010 victory was the first time a snow sports athlete had won the top honor in the ESPYs’ 18 year history. Vonn and Clark are up against WNBA star Lauren Jackson and NCAA hoop standout Maya Moore. Vonn, the 2010 Olympic gold medalist for downhill who resides in Vail, Colo., rocketed through last winter to capture three more Audi FIS Alpine World Cup titles to bring her career total to 12 – more than any other American skier – male or female. She also boosted her career World Cup win total to 41, also a U.S. record.

West Dover, Vt.’s Clark paved the way for snowboarding in 2002 when she became the first athlete to win the ESPY for Best Action Sports Athlete after winning the Olympic gold medal for halfpipe. Two years later the award was split into a male and female category. She is also nominated for Female Action Sport Athlete along with Canadian freeskier Sarah Burke.

Clark’s record-breaking winter included a clean sweep of the Burton New Zealand Open, the O’Neil Evolution, the Burton European Open, the Killington Dew Tour, X Games in Aspen, the Burton Canadian Open, the Snowbasin Dew Tour, the Mammoth Grand Prix, the Burton U.S. Open and the European X Games. She placed an exclamation point on the 10-win season by landing a 1080 in the X Games at Aspen – a first in women’s snowboarding history.

Fellow snow sport athletes up for 2011 ESPYs include two-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, of Carlsbad, Calif.,who is nominated for Best Male Action Sport Athlete along with French freeskier Kevin Rolland. Super G World Champion and four-time Paralympian Chris Devlin-Young, of Campton, N.H., is up for Male Athlete with a Disability, while teammate and double 2010 Paralympic gold medalist Alana Nichols, of Farmington, N.M., is nominated for the women’s honor.

By: First Tracks!| Online Media

Lindsey Vonn Up For Best Female Athlete

Lindsey Vonn Up For Best Female Athlete: 2011 ESPYS. The 2011 ESPY Awards will be live this Wednesday, July 13, at 7:00 p.m. MT on ESPN. Host duties will go once again to Seth Myers, so there's a chance that there will be some good jokes throughout the show. None of the Colorado Sports teams is up for an award, but Vail, Colorado's Lindsey Vonn is up for "Best Female Athlete."

These are her 2011 accomplishments for the category, from ESPN:
- Won the Super G, Super-Combined and Downhill titles in 2011.
- Finished the season with eight race wins.

She won the 2010 award for her Winter Olympics exploits, as well as 11 race victories. She's going up against a tough crowd in this year's competition. Snowboarder Kelly Clark, WNBA star Lauren Jackson and UConn star Maya Moore are all up for the award.

The safe bet and likely winner is Maya Moore. Her 22.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game and becoming the fourth-leading scorer in NCAA history are astonishing. If Moore wins, she will join Rebecca Lobo, Chamique Holdsclaw, Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker as basketball players who have won the award.

By: Russ Oates | Jul 11

Lindsey Vonn Celebrity Golf Classic

Lindsey Vonn Celebrity Golf Classic Olympian and World Champion beauty on skis Lindsey Vonn made the rounds yesterday on the gold course for the ESPY Celebrity Golf Classic. According to the check Vonn and fellow celebrities like 24's Dennis Haysbert and Criminal Mind's Joe Mantegna are holding in the picture above, the Golf Classic raised over 1 million dollars. The money raised goes to the V Foundation for Cancer Research.

Photo above from Lindsey Vonn's Facebook Page

Founded by EPSN and Jim Valvano, The V Foundation has been around since 1993 and has been raising millions of dollars to fight cancer.  Since we are all not like the celebrities who were there to play golf and donate to the V Foundation's cause, don't fret. You can donate right now on the V Foundations website RIGHT HERE.

Now, the skiing golden girl is getting dolled up for the awards happening in a few hours. I wonder if Vonn will be wearing a dress as colorful as her golfing shirt. I sure hope so!

Lindsey Vonn-Justin Bieber

Lindsey Vonn-Justin Bieber wins Best Female Athlete ESPY, requests photo with Justin Bieber

Lindsey Vonn talks on the red carpet before the 2011 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles.

On Wednesday evening at the ESPYs, Lindsey Vonn went out and captured another title in the Best Female Athlete category. That makes two straight victories, and if she's able to get one more next year, we can pretty much go ahead and rename it the Lindsey Vonn Award (and make the trophy a gold-plated likeness of her head).

Though, come to think of it, Maria Riesch might have some objection to that -- especially since Riesch, as you may recall, finished ahead of Vonn in the overall World Cup standings this year.

But enough of us being a buzzkill with such subtleties as actual scores of the World Cup standings. Because if we bring up World Cup standings, we have to mention the fact that weather cut short the end of the season last year with Vonn just three points behind Riesch, and we don't want to mention that (though technically speaking, we just did).

In any case, this is not meant to be an airing of grievances; it's supposed to be a celebratory moment for Vonn. And with that in mind, let's allow her a moment to enjoy it:
Insert moment here. Good. Now that we've settled that, we'd like to discuss the other notable takeaway from Vonn's evening at the ESPYs: the three-time overall World Cup champ is a Belieber, a fact that she confirmed by asking Justin Bieber if she could take a photo with him for her Facebook page.

By: Matt Stroup | Universal Sports