Due to unseasonably warm weather and resultant poor snow conditions, many of the Alpine skiing events were moved back, giving Vonn additional time to heal. On February 17, in her first event, Vonn won the gold medal in the downhill at Whistler Blackcomb, beating longtime U.S. rival Julia Mancuso by 0.56 seconds and becoming the first American woman to win Olympic gold in downhill.
Spanning a land mass of 238,535 km, Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east and the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean in the south. The word Ghana means Warrior King in the Soninke language.
English is the Official Language of Ghana. Akan is one of the Akan languages, which are part of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language family. It is the most widely spoken indigenous language in Ghana. The dialects, especially Twi and Fante, are often given the status of separate languages.