PARK CITY, Utah (June 3) – Immediately following the FIS Council decision to award Beaver Creek/Vail the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Thursday afternoon, Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn's (Vail, CO) Facebook status instantly changed to "Wooohoooo!!! Vail, CO will host the 2015 World Championships!!! I'm so excited!!!! Congrats to everyone in Vail and for all of your hard work!"

The Beaver Creek/Vail 2015 bid committee, comprised of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, Vail Resorts and the Vail Valley Foundation, captured 8 of the 15 available votes in the first round with Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy coming in second ahead of St. Moritz, Switzerland.

"I couldn't be more excited for the Worlds to come to Vail," Vonn said following a workout later that afternoon. "I remember being a slipper in 1999 and being totally inspired that such incredible athletes like Hermann Maier were racing on my home hill. In a lot of ways, it propelled my love of this sport and I know it will do the same for kids all over the U.S. and the world."

Yet the defending downhill and super G World Champion wasn't the only U.S. Ski Team athlete lighting up the social mediasphere. Steven Nyman (Sundance, UT), who has stood on the Birds of Prey downhill podium in Beaver Creek multiple times lit up his Twitter page with "So stoked!!!!"

"I'm so fired up on this," Nyman later said before hitting the river in Vail, where he's training for this weekends Stand Up Paddle competition at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail. "There are a lot of guys on our team who will save retirement until after 2015 just to get a shot at racing Birds for the Worlds and we've got a lot of young guys coming up who will be even more stoked to attack that hill knowing we'll be on the big stage there in 2015. I've never experienced something this big on home soil. It's going to be awesome."

Olympic super G bronze medalist Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) heard the news while studying for finals at Dartmouth College.

"It's so sweet to know that Worlds will be on home turf," said Weibrecht, whose World Cup career skyrocketed after a thrilling 2007 run down the Birds of Prey downhill to finish 10th from the 53rd start. "Beaver Creek is the best World Cup stop we have all season, not just because of the hill, they know how to put on a good show. A lot of young racers will definitely be pushing harder knowing that we'll be racing in Vail right after Sochi."

Both men's and women's speed races will take place in Beaver Creek with a new women's slope built directly to the right of the Birds of Prey and finishing in a combined stadium to be built on the current site of Red Tail Camp. Technical events will be run a few minutes down the road on Vail's Giant Steps with a dramatic finish in the heart of Vail Village.