Lindsey Vonn (Team USA) has spent the past four years growing into one the best women’s ski racer in U.S. history.

Now she can call herself a gold medalist as well. Von won the women’s downhill Wednesday with a spectacular run at Whistler Creekside. She finished with a winning time of one minute and 44.19 seconds which makes her the first American woman to earn gold in an Olympic downhill.

"I was so nervous and so happy that I made it down," said Vonn, "This is the best day of my life. It’s awesome."

She won by more than a half-second. In ski racing, that’s an eternity.

Vonn won a race on a course that was violently slippery which caused several racers to wipe out, some in horrific fashion.

Vonn had a finishing time of 1:44.19, and her teammate Julia Mancuso (USA) took the silver with a finishing time of 1:44.75 – for which she held the early lead – while, Elisabeth Goergle (AUT) too the bronze finishing 1.46 seconds behind Vonn with a time of 1:45.65.

This was Vonn’s first race since she clinched the World Cup super-G title with a win on January 31; she suffered a shin injury on February 2 during a pre-Olympic practice run. She didn’t ski for over a week to help her shin recover and was aided even more when weather cancelled most official training events in Vancouver.

Here is just one of many ways to measure just how good she is:

Two days ago, the top three in the men’s Olympic downhill, from gold to bronze, were separated by a total of nine-hundredths of a second.

Vonn was 56-hundredths of a second better than Mancuso and a ridiculous 1.46 seconds better than Austria’s Elisabeth Görgl, who got third.

"It’s really bumpy, you know — a really challenging course," Vonn said amid tears of joy. "I almost lost it on the top. You know I got a little late. I just kept going and fighting.”

"It’s awesome."

Also worth noting, Vonn still has four more races to go at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.