Vonn set for final races of ‘awesome career’
ARE, Sweden — There was no reason to push too hard, so Lindsey Vonn straightened up at the end of her downhill training run on Monday, cruising across the finish line. Television cameras caught her exhaling long and loud.
The greatest female ski racer in U.S. history had officially begun the final week of her career.
“I just want to ski my best,” she told a Eurosport interviewer at the bottom of the hill. “I don’t know what level that is right now.”
Slowed by age and aching knees, the 34-year-old has announced her retirement after these world championships in Are, Sweden. That leaves only two more races — the super-G today followed by the downhill on Sunday — to cap nearly two decades of world-class competition.
“It’s been an emotional two weeks making the hardest decision of my life,” Vonn recently told her 1.7 million Instagram followers, “but I have accepted that I cannot continue ski racing.”
Given the circumstances, she performed well enough on Monday, getting a feel for the snow and terrain, ultimately tying for the 11th fastest time despite taking the first run down the hill, a training position she dislikes.
It didn’t change her plans — Vonn initially intended to compete through the end of the season before submitting to the pain that hampered her skiing through early races.
Known for brute power and ferocity, she has looked brittle this winter, lacking the strength to lean into high-speed turns.
“My body is broken beyond repair and it isn’t letting me have the final season I dreamed of,” she wrote. “My body is screaming at me to stop and it’s time for me to listen.”
A more fitting goodbye might have included five more World Cup wins, moving her past Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark for all-time victories. But falling short of that record doesn’t tarnish the legacy of the only American woman to capture an Olympic downhill and four overall World Cup titles.
First skiing at age 2, the Minnesota native broke onto the world scene in 2000 — she was known by her maiden name, Kildow, then — before collecting her first World Cup victory in the downhill at Lake Louise, Alberta, four years later.
Promising results at the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics made for huge expectations at the 2010 Vancouver Games, where she arrived with a badly bruised shin. Despite the injury, Vonn won the downhill and earned bronze in the super-G.
“The best day of my life by far,” she said after winning that historic gold.
In the years that followed, she added a downhill bronze from the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and increased her World Cup count to 82 victories. That is 20 more than the next closest woman, Annemarie Moser-Proll of Austria, and nearly 30 more than current U.S. star Mikaela Shiffrin.