You know you’ve arrived in the cross country ski world when your team rolls up to events with its own wax truck.

With the faces of team members plastered on the side, no less.

It wasn’t even 20 years ago that the Americans barely had enough world-class athletes to field a team, and now they’re a budding cross-country powerhouse. The U.S. women are mainstays on the World Cup podium. Watching an American chase down a Norwegian or a Swede is no longer akin to seeing an alien.

But there’s one all-important measure of success still to achieve: an Olympic medal.

“Four years ago, when we showed up at the Olympics, I thought Kikkan (Randall) was going to win a medal. I was there to have an experience, but I didn’t believe I could be there myself,” Sadie Bjornsen said Wednesday. “Fast-forward four years, and I’m showing up believing I can win a medal. Jessie (Diggins) is showing up believing that. Kik is showing up believing that.

“Every person on the team feels that.”

The Americans actually do have an Olympic medal already, a bronze by Bill Koch back in 1976. But that might as well be ancient history.

The current team craves hardware of its own, similar to what it’s been collecting the last four years.

Diggins won the last World Cup race before the Winter Games, and is third in the overall standings. She won two medals at last year’s world championships, and teamed with Randall to become the first Americans to win a world title, the team sprint freestyle in 2013.

Bjornsen ranks seventh in the overall standings, having been on the podiums three times already this season. She teamed with Diggins for the bronze in the team sprint classic at last year’s worlds. Sophie Caldwell has made the podium twice this year in freestyle sprint, once with Ida Sargent.

Randall, the one who started the renaissance, was the first American woman to win a World Cup medal and then to win titles, both at the world championships and in the World Cup.

“Early on, we really were functioning off this little glimmer of belief, of it’s possible,” Randall said.

“To me, it’s a lot like when Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile. Nobody thought it was possible and then he did it and the records just started falling,” she said. “I’m not even going to take credit for breaking that door because Kris Freeman was fourth twice in the world championships, and Andy Newell got on the podium in China the year before I got my first podium.

“Now,” Randall said, “everybody’s showing.”

The success has brought tangible results. Like that wax truck.

It sounds like a simple thing, a trailer where all the wax technicians can work together. But when conditions change, the wax on the skis need to, too. It’s a heck of a lot easier to do that when everyone’s in the same space rather than being spread out and having to relay information in the cross-country skiing version of telephone.

It’s also given the skiers a confidence boost.

“We’re not just this club team showing up to try to compete against the best in the world,” Bjornsen said. “We are somebody, and I think the emotional pride that comes with it is like pulling an Olympic suit on it. It’s something that helps you believe you can be the best.”

An Olympic medal would do that, too. Give the team the added visibility necessary to ensure this run of success doesn’t end in Pyeongchang, as well.

American fans are among the most diehard there are — during the 16 days the Olympics run. To have lasting success, to carve out a space in the crowded U.S. sports landscape, you need the hardware. Be honest, you didn’t know ice dance from Dancing with the Stars until Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto won a silver medal in Torino.

Cross country is starting to see the effect on a small scale. The Americans won four medals at last month’s junior world championships, including a silver by Hailey Swirbul in the 5-kilometer classic that was the best-ever finish for a U.S. athlete, male or female.

“As you go through this whole journey, you learn to appreciate things in different ways,” Randall said. “While the results have been amazing for me, just to see the progress and the hard work pay off and the inspirational value it has back at home, it’s made it all worth it for me.”

That and the wax truck, of course.

By Nancy Armour

This article was republished with permission from the original author and 2015 Ronald Reagan Media Award recipient, Nancy Armour, and the original publisher, USA Today. Follow columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.

Speed.

It’s what captivated Lindsey Vonn when she was a little girl in Minnesota, even if the hills she was skiing then were more molehills than mountains. It’s what propelled her to the pinnacle of her sport, arguably the greatest ski racer of all time.

And it’s what keeps bringing her back, despite all the injuries and long having had nothing more to prove.

“I love going fast,” Vonn said, her joy unmistakable as she grinned and let out a big laugh. “When I moved out to Colorado, I was always the person trying to beat all the other kids and going fast.

“It’s fun. Going fast is fun. Every time I get to do a downhill or I’m going fast, I get to the bottom and I’m smiling. I’m grinning ear to ear because it’s just so invigorating. You feel so alive and so fresh and so free.”

Vonn is doing a lot of grinning these days, heading into the Pyeongchang Olympics on one of the hottest streaks of her career. She has won five of her last eight races, including both downhills over the weekend in Garmisch, Germany, and now needs just five wins to match Ingemar Stenmark’s all-time World Cup record.

“It has really been the exact preparation that I was hoping for going into South Korea,” Vonn told The Associated Press after Sunday’s win.

Push a snowball down a mountain, and it will find the fastest, most direct route to the bottom. It’s called the fall line, and in ski racing, the objective is to hew as close to it as possible while still maintaining control.

It takes technique and skill, of course. But it takes guts, too, the steely resolve to hold that line when sanity and self-preservation says to back off, to take the foot off the throttle, even if only for a millisecond.

“It’s not something you can teach, that mentality,” said Picabo Street, the 1998 Olympic champion in Super-G. “You can’t teach someone to love that fall line. To try and be in it as much of the time as possible and seek that out, constantly.”

Because for as big a rush as it is, it’s an even bigger risk.

Orthopedic residents or physical therapists could make a semester-long case study of Vonn’s many injuries. Arm. Finger. Head. Back. Knee. Knee again. Shin. The other knee. There are very few parts of her body that have not been broken, shattered or badly bruised.

The injuries have cost her big chunks of the previous four seasons, to say nothing of a few more Olympic medals. She finished eighth in the downhill in Turin, two days after she was airlifted to a hospital following a scary crash in training. She missed the Sochi Olympics after reinjuring her knee about six weeks before the Games.

Even in Vancouver, where she won gold in the downhill and a bronze in Super-G, she skied with a badly bruised shin.

“I don’t look at it and think, `Wow, I’m so unlucky,’” Vonn said. “I think, `Wow, I’ve worked really hard. I’m a very strong person and I’ve overcome a lot.’ So I don’t look at it as a negative at all.”

And for all of her accomplishments, it’s that strength that might be her most enduring legacy.

The physical resilience is, of course, obvious.

“Every time she’s been injured, she’s tackled that injury like it was another event. Many months long, painful recoveries, a tremendous amount of physical rehab and physical therapy. Her ability to overcome that is extraordinary,” said Tiger Shaw, a two-time Olympian who is now the president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association.

“Most athletes who’ve had the kind of injuries she’s had would be slowed down,” he said. “She’s showed it doesn’t matter to her. When she comes back it’s like nothing happened.”

But the power and confidence she presents off the snow has made an impact, too.

Vonn grew up idolizing Street, whom she met for the first time when she was 9 and who eventually became a mentor and a friend. As Vonn’s career began to blossom, Street recommended that she find some way to pay her success and good fortune forward.

It’s a way to widen the bubble that eventually closes in all star athletes – especially those who achieve the level of crossover fame Vonn has.

“After a while, you start to go, `OK, hang on. This is a little too much. Let me put my sunglasses on and turn around and see who I can share this with,’” Street said.

Vonn started the Lindsey Vonn Foundation, which supports girls and young women through scholarships, camps and speaker series. To see its impact, look no further than American teammate Jackie Wiles, who, until a devastating crash Saturday, was part of the U.S. team for Pyeongchang.

When Wiles was struggling to pay for her training and travel two years ago, Vonn and her foundation pitched in to help. Since then, Wiles has made her first two World Cup podiums, including sharing the stage when Vonn won her 79th race last month.

Vonn’s influence can be seen at the grassroots level, too. Street now runs the Picabo Street Academy in Park City, Utah, a program that helps promising young athletes balance education with the travel required for training and competitions. There’s a different attitude in the young, female skiers she sees now, and Street attributes a large part of that to Vonn.

“She’s made it cool to be strong and beautiful. She hasn’t been alone in that but, whoo, she’s made a big impact,” Street said. “(Young girls) are wearing pink and purple, they’ve got the girlie stuff splashed here and there. That was something I could never accomplish, and I love that she did.

“That’s one of the best legacies she’s going to look back on,” Street added. “I don’t even know if she realizes how big that is.”

Probably not. Ski racing has taken Vonn to places and heights she never imagined. Strip away the records and the celebrity and everything else, however, and what’s left is what enchanted her all those years ago.

“I just wanted to ski fast. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” Vonn said. “I love what I do. When I was a kid, I wasn’t the coolest kid. I wasn’t the popular kid. I was just the kid that was always on the mountain.”

Looking for that fall line, and the rush alongside it.

By Nancy Armour

This article was republished with permission from the original author and 2015 Ronald Reagan Media Award recipient, Nancy Armour, and the original publisher, USA Today. Follow columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.