Vonn seeking to add career ‘exclamation point’

Final run for an Olympic medal starts next week.

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA — Lindsey Vonn waited eight years to return to the Winter Olympics.

But the waiting continued when the U.S. Alpine skiing icon boarded a flight from Munich, Germany, to Seoul on Wednesday for the Pyeongchang Games.

Vonn, who missed the Sochi Olympics in 2014 because of an injured right knee, eventually had to switch planes. Then the replacement flight sat on the tarmac for six hours.

“Well hopefully we get to Korea,” Vonn tweeted to more than 980,000 followers.

When she finally arrived — the last U.S. athlete to go through team processing — the journey had taken 24 hours. The long wait is almost over.

“I want to end on a high note,” said Vonn, whose

first race is the super-G on Feb. 17. “I want to put an exclamation point on my career.”

The three-time Olympian is the biggest name in the

11 days of Alpine competition in the windswept Taebaek Mountains.

Vonn, 33, won two World Cup downhill races in Germany last weekend, giving

her 81 career victories. The all-time record is 86 wins, a mark she expects to surpass.

But Vonn is focused on the Olympics after a series of injuries the last four years. There’s the right knee, a broken left ankle, hairline fracture in her left knee and broken right arm.

Finally healthy, Vonn will compete in the downhill, her best event for which she collected a gold medal at the Vancouver Games in 2010, super-G and combined. Her knee prevents her from trying the giant slalom.

Regardless of the outcome, Vonn expects this to be her final Olympics.

“It’s what I think about when I wake up and it’s what I think about when I go to sleep,” she said of the Games.

But Vonn’s preeminence will be challenged by U.S. teammate Mikaela Shiffrin. She is the world’s most dominant skier, amassing almost twice as many overall points as Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener, the No. 2 competitor on the World Cup circuit this season.

At the Sochi Olympics, Shiffrin, 22, became the youngest competitor to ever win the slalom. And she hasn’t slowed down. Shiffrin won nine of 10 races during a three-week stretch in December and January.

She’s the heavy favorite to defend the title in the slalom and will contend to finish on the podium in the giant slalom and combined events, as well.

“There’s a target on my back and I’m just trying to stay ahead of the arrow that’s trying to catch me,” Shiffrin said recently.

But one of the most familiar names in U.S. women’s skiing won’t be competing in Pyeongchang. Julia Mancuso, the most decorated female U.S. Olympic skier, retired in January, unable to fully return after right hip surgery that sidelined her for two seasons.

So most of the attention in Pyeongchang will focus on Vonn. She’s already eyeing the long, sweeping turns and big jumps in the downhill course at Jeongseon Alpine Center.

“I feel like I’m coming into these Olympics on a hot streak,” Vonn said. “Last weekend was really the icing on the cake, exactly what I needed to build my confidence and get ready.”

AL BELLO / GETTY IMAGES Lindsey Vonn, surrounded by her United States teammates, enters the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony Friday night.