After winning the Women's Downhill ski race yesterday despite an injury that left her skiing primarily on one leg, Lindsey Vonn, the American champion, broke into tears during her interview until her husband interjected something like, "That's enough crying, Lindsey. Today is a good day," and led her away from the cameras.

Vonn is a big, super-strong, ultra-competitive beautiful girly girl. And that's not too uncommon in the Winter Olympics. The Winter Olympics are always being criticized for all the blue-eyed victors, but a high degree of sexual equality in sports and physical labor is a long-standing cultural attribute that increases the farther north you go in Europe, and among Americans from Northern Europe.

The buttkicking Nordic babe has a more than 1000-year-long history in North America from Leif Eric's ferocious sister Freydis Ericsdottir, who took the lead in battling the Skraelings for Vinland, down to Elin Nordegren Woods running amok with Tiger's golf club last Thanksgiving.

I think it has something to do with the lack of Jersey Shore / Silvio Berlusconi-style strutting machismo the farther north in Europe. If an Italian superbo is laying on the bronzer, hair gel, and pinky rings as symbols of his masculinity, then an Italian women feels impelled to lay on the long fingernails and other excesses of femininity. In contrast, if a Swedish man is uncontriving about his masculinity, it frees up Swedish women to be uncontrived about their femininity.