The most overused word in sports is star. Fake Rockies Jerseys . It should be reserved only for the deserving few, those who constantly brighten our horizons with their exploits, who dont wax, wane and flame out in a season or two and, most importantly, who dont cheat, dope, act like idiots and otherwise prove that sports are too quick to build pedestals for athletes.Lindsey Vonn is a bona fide star.In simple numerical terms, its hard to gauge the relative value of the Americans new record in Alpine skiing. Vonns 63rd win in World Cup ski racing, in Italy on Monday, moved her ahead of Annemarie Moser-Proell, the womens previous record-holder from Austria with 62 World Cup victories from 1970-1980.But with fewer races back then, Moser-Proell had fewer opportunities than Vonn to make her mark and she won more frequently and from a younger age than Vonn.The technology of skiing has changed, too. Perhaps not as drastically as in tennis, where Rod Lavers wooden rackets frustrate comparisons with Roger Federer. In winning gold at the 1980 Olympics, Moser-Proell sped downhill as fast as Vonn did 30 years later for her gold in Vancouver in 2010.Still, how would Vonn and Moser-Proell have fared against each other with the same boots and skis? The differing eras make that impossible to answer with certainty.Fairer to both, then, not to play one off against the other. Its how and why Vonn has reached this milestone, not the record alone or eclipsing Moser-Proell, which make her special.TALENTS NOT ENOUGH: Vonns brain is missing the alarm bells that tell the rest of us to slow down or she has learned to ignore them. Speed simply doesnt scare her. Thats why I have so many speeding tickets in my car, she has said. For her, an icy corner on a precipitous mountain slope is an opportunity to go quicker than others who apply the brakes. Not crashing occasionally, she figures, must mean that she isnt pushing hard enough. Im just not afraid.But she also was smart in realizing long ago, early in her career, that natural hard-wiring for speed wouldnt alone be sufficient. She became the dominant woman skier not simply by being quick but by training and working hard enough to exploit that talent.NOT A QUITTER: There were plenty of points along the way when Vonn could have said, enough. At 16, after failing to finish most of her races. At 21, when a back-crunching, cart-wheeling crash in training at the Turin Olympics made her realize, for the first time, that at any second I could be done, not just in skiing, but in life. In 2013, when she tore two right-knee ligaments, the ACL and MCL, that keep our thighbones attached to our shinbones. Or again in November that year, when she re-tore one of those ligaments that had been rebuilt with a graft from her hamstring, eventually forcing her out of the 2014 Sochi Olympics and back into surgery.Pain is as much a part of competitive skiing as snow. What is astounding about Vonn isnt her high tolerance for it but that shes winning again so soon after sweating her way back to health — not once but twice — from surgeries that emaciated her leg muscles. Only in September did her surgeon clear her to ski again. World Cup wins 60, 61, 62 and 63 have come in eight races since December. She has scars on her knee but her confidence and fearlessness seem remarkably intact.Im not dead; Im still here, Vonn says in a forthcoming TV documentary about her recovery. One day, that would make a fitting headstone.OFF-PISTE PERSONA: Given that they have people who manage their public personas, who tweet and post for them, and otherwise make them sound and look good, its silly to assume that the athlete on your cereal box is a model citizen in private, too. Michael Phelps drunken driving, the revelation in 2009 of Tiger Woods serial adultery or Lance Armstrongs doping — to name just those three — showed how success in sports is sometimes only half the story.Vonn does the public side extremely well. All sports could do with more women like her, to balance out and end the undeserved dominance of men. She is articulate about skiing, making the sport easier to understand and so more attractive. She seems to understand and deal graciously with media curiosity about her personal relationship with Woods, helping rehabilitate his image somewhat. Hes a catch. Hes a good boyfriend, Vonn said on the Today show after Woods sprang the surprise of turning up for her 63rd victory.For the most part, shes been remarkably scandal-free for her career, six-time Olympic medallist Bode Miller said this month of Vonn. She does the right stuff all the time. Shes a very clean-cut American superstar and thats an amazing title.A true star.___John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester@ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/johnleicester Colorado Rockies Gear . Marie rink got back in the win column at the Olympic mens curling tournament with a 7-4 win over the host Russian squad on Wednesday. Rockies Jerseys China . Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone dismissed Tuesdays massive anti-government protest in Manama as "a lot of kids having a go at the police." "I dont think its anything serious at all," Ecclestone was quoted as saying in The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday. https://www.cheaprockiesjerseys.us/ . MacArthur scored two goals, and the Senators outlasted Detroit in a testy third period to beat the Red Wings 4-2 on Saturday night.DETROIT - The Detroit Lions are heading back to the post-season. Now they can focus on the race for the NFC North title.The Lions clinched their second playoff berth in the last 14 seasons when Philadelphia lost to Washington on Saturday. Detroit plays at Chicago on Sunday.The Redskins win led to a celebratory message on Detroit receiver Golden Tates Twitter account: So thankful our hard work is paying off!Excited to be in the post season but thats not good enough!We must handle business tmrw! #OnePrideThe Lions (10-4) are tied atop their division with Green Bay, and the Packers host Detroit in the final game of the regular season.Detroits most recent playoff appearance came during the 2011 season, when the Lions were a wild card and lost to New Orleans 45-28 in the post-season. Detroit has not hosted a playoff game since a loss to Green Bay on Jan. Wholesale Rockies Jerseys. 8, 1994.The Lions have not won a playoff game since 1991, and that is their only post-season win since 1957, when they won the NFL title.Detroit lost six of its last seven games last season, blowing an excellent chance to make the playoffs under coach Jim Schwartz. The Lions then fired Schwartz and replaced him with Jim Caldwell, and they made the post-season this year on the strength of a tough defence that stifles the run.Caldwell said Friday he would not rest his top players against Chicago even if Philadelphia won, and he said he wasnt even planning to watch the Eagles on Saturday.We have more important things going on for us at that particular point in time and thats to win, Caldwell said Friday.___Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL ' ' '