SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) — She helped Salt Lake City secure hosting rights for the 2034 Winter Olympics and designed her own skiwear and goggles lines.
She invested in and advised companies, worked with her foundation that helps girls from underserved communities and made a film about her childhood idol, Picabo Street.
She even hosted a reality TV dog show while staying in shape between surgeries to repair her various skiing injuries.
Lindsey Vonn had plenty going on during her nearly six years of “retirement.”
All those ventures are on hold now, though.
That’s because Vonn recently came out of retirement and is back ski racing at the age of 40 — currently at the world championships and preparing to chase a medal in Saturday’s downhill on her new titanium knee.
“I lived a wild life in the last six years,” Vonn said. “I’m on the boards of companies. I invest. I’m advising different funds. I’ve created businesses. I have my foundation. … Ski racing has allowed me to build an incredible life for myself.
“I’m just pausing that life. I’m not leaving that life,” Vonn added. “This is just a crazy adventure that I’m going down. I don’t know the outcome, but I know that life is short and I want to take a chance on something that could be incredible.”
Vonn was criticized in Europe when she returned to the skiing circuit in December, with Austrian and Swiss former champions suggesting she was “crazy” to race downhill at her age, attributing it to a lack of purpose in retirement.
Vonn this week hit back at those comments, calling them “completely inappropriate and disrespectful."
“I love my life and I’m very lucky and I’m excited to get back to it,” she said. “I have friends and I have businesses and I have things that need to be done still, regardless of whether I’m racing or not. So I’m trying to find that balance of maintaining my life and still trying to do this somewhat insane thing that I’m doing."
The reason she returned was that she didn’t walk away from the sport on her own terms in 2019. Injuries forced it upon her.
But then in April she had a partial replacement procedure performed on her right knee and now she feels like she’s “turned back the clock 15 years.”
No more pain. No more swelling. No more worries.
“Skiing is a specific part of my life and there’s nothing that I can do outside of skiing that will ever replace it,” Vonn said. “I have an amazing life. I’m happy. You know, it’s not always happy. But in general I’m very lucky. … So I’m not happier because I’m skiing. I’m happy in general and I’m lucky to be able to do something that I enjoy doing so much.”
So much so that Vonn has continued to compete at the worlds despite feeling sick with cold- and flu-like symptoms and despite losing feeling briefly in her right arm when she got caught on a gate in the super-G, her opening race on Thursday.
One thing keeping her going is that she needs to keep testing her new equipment and improving her ranking for her long-term goal of competing at next year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics. Another is that she’s breaking barriers in the sport.
The oldest woman to finish on the podium at a worlds or Olympics was Federica Brignone, who took silver in super-G at 34 this week. Vonn could beat that record by six years.
“I mean, I like records. I’m not going to lie,” Vonn said. “So if I can get another one, I’ll take the old records. No problem.”
Johan Clarey holds the men’s record: he was 41 when he took silver in downhill at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
“It’s been done by men so why can’t it be done by a woman,” Vonn said. “Hopefully I can set a new standard of what’s possible.”
___
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
Andrew Dampf, The Associated Press
