She didn’t have to do this. Vonn spent decades and four Olympics fighting through waves of injuries that would have ended so many other careers. She had nothing left to prove to anyone.
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She didn’t have to do this. After retiring from skiing, Vonn reinvented herself, becoming an entrepreneur, hosting a reality TV show, writing a memoir, engineering charitable endeavors and investing time and money in worlds far removed from ski slopes. She transformed herself from a skier into an institution.
She didn’t have to do this. Un-retiring always brings the risk — for many, the certainty — that a legend should have stayed retired. Michael Jordan, Brett Favre, Willie Mays, virtually every boxer and MMA fighter who came back for one more turn in the spotlight … all returned diminished, a sad, faded reflection of their past glory.
She didn’t have to do this. After suffering a catastrophic wreck in Switzerland just one week before the Opening Ceremony, a wreck that ruptured her ACL, she could have accepted her heartbreaking fate and bowed out of the competition.
And yet here she is, not just a member of the U.S. Olympic ski team once again, but still winning races; not just sustaining injuries, but rallying back from them over and over. This month, Lindsey Vonn will once again don the stars and stripes, once again return to her beloved Cortina, and add an entire new chapter to a career that everyone — including her — believed was done years ago.
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“I’ve built a great life outside of skiing, but there will never be anything like skiing,” Vonn, 41, said in October. “I fully understand that, and I’m comfortable with that. But I’m definitely going to enjoy this last bit of adrenaline, because I won’t get it back.”
Two decades of Olympic achievement
When she clicks into her skis this month in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Vonn will compete in her fifth Olympics, and her first since 2018. It’s a stunning achievement, but perfectly in line with the arc of Vonn’s life. Born in Minnesota in 1984, she declared as a 9-year-old that she wanted to ski in the Winter Olympics … and eight years later, as a member of Team USA in 2002, she did exactly that.
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She didn’t medal in those Games, nor in 2006, where she crashed so severely in training that she had to be airlifted off the course. But in 2010, she claimed gold in downhill, the first U.S. woman ever to do so, and changed the course of the rest of her life. A 2013 ACL injury cost her a shot at the Sochi Games in 2014. At what she believed was her final Olympics, in 2018, she won a bronze in downhill and formally ceded the Olympic stage to younger skiers like Mikaela Shiffrin.
As she continued to pile up podiums around the Olympics, Vonn set her sights on Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 World Cup wins. She came close, very close, but stalled out in 2019 at 82 wins, decades’ worth of concussions, surgeries, fractures and assorted injuries finally catching up with her.
And for everyone — herself included — that seemed to be the end of Vonn’s story on skis. Shiffrin eventually caught and passed both Vonn and Stenmark in World Cup victories. The skiing world proceeded onward through the lockdown Olympics in Beijing. Vonn’s career exploits faded farther and farther into the distance.
The two factors that brought Vonn back
But even though she was done with skiing, skiing wasn’t quite done with her. The injuries from decades on the slopes dogged her daily life. She couldn’t hike, walk or even stand without pain. So in April 2024, Vonn underwent a partial knee replacement that completely upended her story — in the best possible way. She began hiking, working out, even skiing without pain.
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“I really thought when I retired in 2019, that was it,” Vonn said. “I had built an amazing life, I was really happy. But then after the replacement, I knew things were really different. My body felt so good, and I just kind of kept pushing myself further and further to see what I was capable of, and racing seemed like the logical next step.”
Vonn announced that she would begin racing again in November 2024. She faced skepticism, disbelief, even scorn; two-time Olympic gold medalist Michaela Dorfmeister told Austrian TV that Vonn “should see a psychologist,” and wondered, “Does she want to kill herself?” Another Olympic gold winner, Franz Klammer, declared, “She’s gone completely mad.”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. At her first race back, at Copper Mountain in Colorado, Vonn finished 24th in a field of 45. Her finishes kept climbing, and last December, she finally won her 83rd World Cup race, finishing first in the downhill in St. Moritz. She added No. 84 just a few weeks ago, further solidifying the legitimacy of her return.
Which brings us to Cortina d’Ampezzo, the second motivation — along with the knee surgery — behind Vonn’s return. Vonn achieved her first World Cup podium at Cortina, as well as her 63rd victory, the one that gave her more downhill titles than any woman, ever. In all, she’s won 12 World Cup events at Cortina, and feels as comfortable there as anywhere else on earth.
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“I don’t think I would have tried this comeback if the Olympics weren’t in Cortina,” Vonn said. “If it had been anywhere else, I would probably say it’s not worth it. But for me, there’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back, and it’s pulled me back one last time.”
Lindsey Vonn celebrates after winning the downhill at St. Moritz, the 83rd World Cup victory of her career. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP via Getty Images)
(FABRICE COFFRINI via Getty Images)
Would Lindsey Vonn make the Olympic team?
Once Vonn started racking up podiums around the world, there was little doubt she’d make Team USA. U.S. Ski & Snowboard regulations offer plenty of latitude for subjectivity in the selection process, with a “discretionary” selection that can go to a “medal capable athlete” — which by U.S. Ski’s definition is any athlete achieving Top 30 finishes in World Cup events.
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The moment arrived two days before Christmas, when U.S. Ski made the expected but still impressive announcement: Vonn would be going to Milan-Cortina as a member of Team USA.
“I am honored to be able to represent my country one more time, in my 5th and final Olympics!” Vonn wrote. “Although I can’t guarantee any outcomes, I can guarantee that I will give my absolute best every time l kick out of the starting gate. No matter how these games end up, I feel like I’ve already won.”
Reckoning with the physical and societal implications of age drives Vonn’s comeback. Few examples exist of female athletes competing long after their peers have retired. Serena Williams, Dara Torres, even Simone Biles all extended their careers past the traditional breaking point, but they’re the outliers. Vonn leans into her age, shrugging off the “grandma” comments from competitors and embracing the wisdom that she’s gained along the way.
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“I bring up age because women don’t normally compete at my age, and I think that needs to change,” she said. “I think the perception of women competing older should change. Tom Brady’s done it. Lewis Hamilton, LeBron James, all of those athletes are and were competing in their 40s. It’s just not a common thing to see [from] women.”
The most fascinating element of Vonn’s comeback is that this isn’t some one-last-run tour, it’s a legitimate Olympic-level tour de force. In her eight races so far this season, Vonn has finished on the podium seven times, going ski-to-ski with competitors nearly two decades younger than her. If she manages to claim another Olympic medal, she’d top by eight years the previous record for the oldest alpine Olympic medalist, a record currently held by … Lindsey Vonn.
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“I like risk. I like going fast. I like pushing myself to the limit. I love being on the mountain,” Vonn said earlier this week in announcing her injury. “It’s an amazing feeling, and one I know I will never have again, because I’ve been retired, and I know I’m lucky that I even get this chance one more time. And every time I stand in the starting gate, I realize I’m lucky to be able to do something I love so much, and I don’t take that for granted.”
She has to do this. And she will, starting this week.