About 100 days after her 17th birthday, Lindsey Kildow charged out of the gate in her first race at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics to a startling top 10 finish.

At the time, the American women’s ski team was in disarray. Its only star, the Olympic champion Picabo Street, was retiring, and the racers expected to ascend in her wake were instead wilting under the pressure of the Games.

Kildow, five years before the marriage that would change her name to Lindsey Vonn, was not well known in top racing circles, until she earned sixth place in that race, the only top 10 finish by an American woman at those Games.

The teenager was suddenly seen as a savior.

After that first Olympic race, a reporter asked if she was awed to be competing on her sport’s biggest stage at such a young age. She recalled a grade school assignment to write about a life goal.