VONN DESCRIBES SEASON AS HER FAREWELL TOUR

Lindsey Vonn arrived at Copper Mountain this week for the last preseason training camp of her career not wanting to retire at the end of the season but knowing she must.

She realizes chronic pain in her right knee from two injuries in 2013 is leaving her no other choice, so she will leave the sport she once dominated whether or not she breaks Ingemar Stenmark’s career record for World Cup wins.

“The amount of work I have to put in to get myself physically to the point I need to be competitive on the World Cup has been not just a challenge but mentally and emotionally really draining,” Vonn said in a recent interview. “It sucks the fun out of what I love so much. I would love to keep going for as long as possible, but the way things are physically, it’s just not in the cards. I have to face the reality that I can’t keep doing what I love forever.”

She says she still enjoys the punishing gym workouts that consistently made her one of the strongest women on the World Cup, and she still loves the thrill of skiing at Interstate highway speeds. It is the other things she has to do because of the damage in her knee that she’s tired of dealing with. Her right knee is bone on bone because of cartilage damage, which creates a lot of swelling and maintenance issues.

“Every time I ski, every time I work out, I have to warm up my knee,” said Vonn, 34. “It’s therapy every day. It’s always doing my recovery program and icing and compression pants. It’s a constant management, otherwise I’m not in