It was a brutal day out there on Whistler mountain for everyone except Lindsey Vonn, who took home the gold medal. Skiers were injured and France barely made it out of the gate.

Vonn, who came into the 2010 Olympics with a badly bruised and swollen right shin seemed to have no problem navigating herself down the icy, bumpy mountain and won the downhill in 1 minute, 44.19 seconds – more than a half-second quicker than anyone else – to collect her first career Olympic medal in the opening women’s race.

Vonn combined with Julia Mancuso to give the United States its first 1-2 finish in an Olympic Alpine event since 1984. Elisabeth Goergl of Austria was third, nearly 1 1/2 seconds behind Vonn.

“A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders now. I got the gold medal that I came here to get. And now I’m just going to attack every day, with no regrets and no fear,” said Vonn, a 25-year-old who lives and trains in Vail, Colo. “And, I mean, I’m just happy with one. Anything else from here on out is a bonus.”

Home of your Sustainability Ninjas, Vancouver, BC is gearing up for the big event – the 2010 Olympic games.

In February, Vancouver’s mayor Gregor Robertson announced the Greenest City Action Team, a program that he hoped would advance green economic initiatives in an effort to make Vancouver the greenest city in the world. However, with all the travel, construction and litter the Olympics inadvertently promotes, can Vancouver really achieve anything close to this goal? Linda Coady, the Vancouver Organizing Committee (Vanoc) vice-president for sustainability, said that after sport and culture, “the environment is the third pillar of the Olympics.” She adds that she believes the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver will be “pretty green.”

Coady says that particular, she wants “green planning and buildings, green event management, and new approaches to carbon management” to be part of the Vancouver 2010 games legacy.

Prof David Suzuki agrees with these hopes and says that he would like Vanoc to “inspire the world to get involved in environmental solutions”.

Suzuki wants Vanoc and its TV sponsors to implement an outreach program.

“What could be more powerful than to have respected Olympic athletes talking on TV, in between sporting events, about the Games’ environment initiatives and inspiring spectators and the public to make similar changes in their own lives?”