Lindsey Vonn considers her first comeback races a success and is already planning the next steps in her return to alpine ski racing.
Vonn, who retired in 2019 at age 34 due to the physical toll of injuries accumulated while ski racing, decided to come back after experiencing a lack of pain following a right partial knee replacement in April.
“All the things that had bothered me for so many years suddenly disappeared. » she told the Today Show on Tuesday.. “I thought, OK, well, if I feel this good playing tennis and doing all the things I love, what about skiing? I feel like it's an adventure. I don't know where this is going to lead, but I'm so happy to be out of pain and doing what I love the most, which is skiing.
Vonn will be a non-competitive frontrunner at the Stifel Birds of Prey World Cup this weekend in Beaver Creek, Colorado, before a focused return to the sport's highest level this winter.
The precursors run the course just before the start of the competition to test the skiers on the official terrain.
A downhill is planned for Saturday and a super-G on Sunday. BNC and Peacock will air highlights Sunday at 4 p.m. ET.
Last weekend, Vonn raced for the first time on her return, placing 19th, 24th, 24th and 27th in the lower level downhills and super-Gs at Copper Mountain, Colorado.
Vonn used these races as a training opportunity and called it a good start. She qualified to return to the World Cup, the circuit for the best alpine skiers.
“Now let’s see when I’m ready” for the World Cup, she posted afterwards.
Lindsey Vonn, retired since 2019, hopes to return to alpine ski racing at age 40.
Vonn, 40, can become the second oldest woman to compete in the Alpine World Cup after her former American teammate Sarah Schleper.
Schleper retired in December 2011, then returned in 2014, skiing for Mexico and most recently competing in the World Cup in January 2022, at the age of 42.
Online archives of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation show that no other women aged 40 and over have competed in the Alpine World Cup, although results from the World Cup's first decades are incomplete.
Vonn can break the records for oldest documented American woman to start a World Cup race (Resi Stiegler, 35), oldest documented woman from any country to start a World Cup downhill racer (Austrian Elisabeth Görgl, 36) and the oldest documented woman from any nation to start a World Cup race. score points in a World Cup race by finishing in the top 30 (Görgl, 36).
“I’m really enjoying this trip,” Vonn said. “No one has ever done this with a knee replacement before, so I honestly don't know how far I can go, but so far it's been amazing. The response has been incredible. And I can tell you, I'm having so much fun going fast again.
She has not yet committed to an Olympic bid at Milan Cortina in 2026.
Vonn recorded her first career World Cup podium in Cortina in 2004 – “It was the first time I really felt like I belonged in the World Cup,” she later said – then won 12 races at the Italian venue during his career.
“I don’t want to have expectations,” she said of the 2026 Olympics, “but if I could (go), that would be amazing.”
Lindsey Vonn joined the U.S. Alpine Ski Team at age 40 after retiring for nearly six years.
