ShareThisSkiing sensation Lindsey Vonn is among a quartet of Winter Olympic athletes featured in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue that is out today in print and online.
Vonn's online photo gallery includes dozens of provocative bikini shots taken indoors and out in Whistler, host to the skiing competition starting this week for the Vancouver Games.
In an SI online interview, the 5-10, 160-pound Burnsville, Minn. native said she enjoyed the opportunity to be in Sports Illustrated "without my helmet and my ski clothes."
The 25-year-old said her favorite shot was when the helicopter was coming over the peak behind her, calling it a traditional mountain-hiking scene, "except that I was in my swimsuit."
Dubbed by SI as "America's best woman skier ever," Vonn is joined in the swimsuit issue by fellow U.S. Olympians snowboarder Hannah Teter, aerial skier Lacy Schnoor and snowboarder Clair Bidez.
Vonn is just coming off being on the cover of Sports Illustrated's Olympic edition in a downhill pose that some critics branded as sexualized because of the altitude of her posterior.
Landing the coveted swimsuit cover spot is supermodel Brooklyn Decker, the 22-year-old wife of tennis star Andy Roddick.
This is the first year that SI has gone multimedia with the popular wintertime escape issue. There are more than 1,400 photos and 100 videos of the models taken during shoots spanning six countries.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit Minneapolis Star Tribune
