LINDSEY VONN CHALLENGES MALE SPARRING PARTNERS

 After dedicating the past few months to intense training regimes, the world's top skiers are ready for the start of the 2011/2012 season. On 22 October, the women will be first out of the gate on the Rettenbach glacier in Sölden and leading the way will be Lindsey Vonn, who has her sights firmly set on regaining the overall FIS World Cup, which commences with the giant slalom.

Vonn has circled the globe this summer, completing a rigorous training programme that was designed to help her reach that goal. This arduous schedule took her to the slopes of New Zealand, athletics tracks in San Diego and then back onto the snow in Chile. During the latter segment of her training regime, the American took on some tough male Norwegian sparring partners in South America. "Obviously it was pretty hard to keep up with them," Vonn admits, recalling their male versus female battles down the slopes, "but I love challenges like that."

The coaches observed that there was hardly any difference between Vonn and the top Norwegian alpine ski athletes - at least not as much of a difference as some (particularly men) might want to believe. They also witnessed Vonn in peak form. Vonn nevertheless got a bit of a scare in Chile. The fright was not on the slopes but rather in the middle of the night when she was awakened at 04:00 by a powerful earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale. "There are more pleasant ways to be woken up," she said afterwards.

On the other hand, she had the good fortune to be in New Zealand early in the southern hemisphere winter. Or to be more precise: Vonn was lucky to get away from New Zealand in time. Just when most skiers arrived to train, the country was hit by the heaviest snowstorm in decades that kept athletes trapped indoors for days on end. Training in those conditions was simply out of the question.

At that point, Vonn was already in California, where she fine-tuned her preparations for the World Cup with track and field sessions. "It was great to be able to workout alongside so many great athletes and to get to know them. It was really sad when the time came to move on from San Diego," Vonn said, fondly recalling the experience.

Vonn's most immediate target is the World Cup, although her overriding goal is the 2014 Winter Olympics. She already has a picture of Sochi, the venue for the next Winter Olympics, hanging on the wall above her bed.