Report-setting skier Lindsey Vonn says she is mounting a comeback at age 40. She’s seen right here in 2017, talking to media forward of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
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Lindsey Vonn acquired a brand new knee earlier this yr — and now she desires to check herself on the highest ranges, asserting that she is coaching to return to aggressive alpine snowboarding. Vonn, 40, says she’s lastly feeling wholesome, 5 years after she retired.
“Effectively, it is off to Colorado…. I hope the [U.S. Ski Team] uniform nonetheless matches,” Vonn stated on Thursday via Instagram.
Information of Vonn’s comeback bid comes 20 years after she gained her first World Cup race. The ladies’s season for the 2024-25 Alpine World Cup started on Oct. 26 and can finish in March 2025.
“Getting again to snowboarding with out ache has been an unimaginable journey,” Vonn stated in a launch from U.S. Ski & Snowboard. “I’m trying ahead to being again with the Stifel U.S. Ski Workforce and to proceed to share my information of the game with these unimaginable ladies.”
Vonn is among the most adorned skiers of all time, and she or he nonetheless holds a number of records, together with most World Cup victories by a lady or man within the downhill and the super-G. Her 82 World Cup wins path solely American Mikaela Shiffrin and Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden. She and Shiffrin are in an elite membership of feminine skiers who’ve gained World Cup occasions in all 5 disciplines: downhill, super-G, large slalom, slalom and mixed.
“Her dedication and fervour in the direction of alpine snowboarding is inspiring and we’re excited to have her again on snow and see the place she will go from right here,” U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and CEO Sophie Goldschmidt stated.
Vonn’s potential to excel in velocity disciplines has taken a toll on her physique, with knee accidents — and a minimum of nine surgeries — disrupting her profession on the aggressive circuit, whilst she continued to rack up wins between setbacks.
“I’ve extreme tri-compartment degeneration however the principle compartment that has been painful is the lateral compartment, or the skin of my knee,” Vonn said in April. She described a sort of knee alternative surgical procedure during which bone is eliminated and changed with titanium items.
“With this new knee that’s now part of me… I really feel like an entire new chapter of my life is unfolding earlier than my eyes,” she said last month on Instagram.
If Vonn is ready to return, it will be the most recent signal that her skills aren’t topic to the identical constraints as different athletes. Again in 2012, her thirst for velocity and competitors led her to argue for being allowed to race against men, a request that the Worldwide Ski Federation rejected.
Weeks later, she skied at as much as 136 kilometers per hour (84.5 mph) in a downhill training run at Lake Louise in Canada — a velocity reportedly unmatched by male skiers on the occasion.
Vonn had not too long ago hinted at a possible return to racing. And in latest months, her presence on slopes in New Zealand and Austria prompted a stir, fueling hypothesis that she would possibly attempt to resume aggressive snowboarding in December, when World Cup races will likely be held in Colorado.
Sofia Goggia, Vonn’s buddy and fellow velocity specialist, welcomed those rumors, saying {that a}) it is a signal Vonn feels wholesome; and b) it will be enjoyable to have her again.
“It might be nice to race within the World Cup with my idol,” Goggia told the Olympics.com site final month.
Even earlier than her knee surgical procedure, Vonn set out final yr to perform an imposing purpose: taking over the terrifyingly steep Streif downhill course in Kitzbühel, Austria. Early within the course, racers face an 85% incline referred to as the Mausefalle (the Mousetrap). On the steepest jump, hovering distances can prime 260 toes.
“Whenever you look out of the beginning gate and it is darkish and you’ll’t see the Mausefalle, it appears such as you’re leaping off the sting of the world and it’s extremely intimidating,” Vonn stated afterward.
She tackled the roughly 2-mile course, and its hovering jumps, at evening. On a pair of borrowed skis and on a knee she would quickly exchange, Vonn’s velocity reportedly topped 62 mph.
