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Park City • To call attention to its $50 million plan to link Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) and Canyons Resort this summer, Vail Resorts turned Tuesday to the biggest name in the history of women's skiing — Lindsey Vonn.

She skied easily into the spotlight, taking an elegant run down PCMR's beginner Claim Jumper trail to a flat area that will be the loading zone for a gondola that will go up and over Pine Cone Ridge to Canyons next winter, forging a connection that will create the largest ski area (7,300 skiable acres) in the United States.

In that open area between Silverlode lift and the Snow Hut Restaurant, Vonn and PCMR Chief Operating Officer Bill Rock held a news conference to ballyhoo Vail's "ambitious, transformative offseason" investment that, Rock promised, "will create something special in Park City."

But, really, who cares what a COO has to say when he is standing next to the winningest female World Cup racer of all time, a 30-year-old woman with four World Cup overall championships, 15 titles in individual disciplines, an Olympic gold medal and a friendship with Tiger Woods.

And who better to offer a perspective than Vonn? After all, she's an ambassador for Vail after having spent her formative years in the Colorado resort community before becoming a U.S. Ski Team member and moving to Park City to train on this very mountain.

"I have a lot of great memories from this resort," Vonn said, recalling times when she and her teammates marveled at how cool it would be to ski the range unhindered by resort boundaries.

"If I would have had the opportunity to go from one resort to the next, I would have loved it," she said, adding that she's impressed that Vail "made it happen in one year."

Vonn was referring to Vail's $182 million purchase of PCMR last September from PowdrCorp., ending a divisive lawsuit stemming from PowdrCorp's failure to renew a lease for PCMR's mountainside from Talisker Corp., which owned that land as well as Canyons Resort. Talisker brought in Vail to run Canyons in May of 2013.

Rock said his company enlisted Vonn's high-profile assistance Tuesday because "she knows what it means for Park City, what it means for the ski industry. And she's just an incredible inspiration to so many people."

That was apparent as a crowd quickly formed around news-media photographers documenting the event.

Lucia Sanchez and her cousin, Ana Sofie Sanchez, both 13 and from Mexico City, gave each other high-fives after taking their picture with Vonn on Lucia's cellphone.

"We're very excited. We've seen her on TV," Ana Sofie said, although the cousins were too shy to ask Vonn for what they really wanted — "to take a run with her," Lucia said.

Moments later, 6-year-old Lucas Vander Louw came away from a scrum around Vonn holding a camera aloft and proclaiming, "I got her on this."

He might not have known who "her" is, but his 12-year-old sister, Ava, sure did — the Vander Louw family is visiting Utah from their hometown of Mahtomedi, Minn. — and like all Minnesotans, they are proud of Vonn's roots in St. Paul. "I watched her in the Olympics," Ava said, adding excitedly, "I didn't expect this at all."

Outside of skiing, being a good influence on girls like Ava is one of Vonn's goals. In February, she started a foundation in her name "to encourage and empower young women." She's hoping that Park City resort soon will teach the Ski Girls Rock lesson program she designed at Vail for girls age 7 through their mid-teens.

"I love kids and feel I have a pretty good connection with them," Vonn said, recalling how much she benefited from having a role model in Picabo Street, another Olympic gold medalist and Park City skier.

Vonn said her passion for skiing is still as strong as when she started. "I love being on the mountain and I love going fast," she said."I want to keep going faster and faster. I still have the same reckless craziness I had when I was 9."

While she lives in Vail now, Vonn noted that being an Epic Pass holder will make it easy for her to come to Utah for a ski day with friends still living here.

She met one after the news conference ended.

It was Ted Ligety, the two-time Olympic gold medalist.

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