By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Lindsey Vonn's Olympic comeback story kicks into high gear this week as Wednesday marks 100 days until the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, but the American skiing great said she was staying cool under the glare of the spotlight.
The 41-year-old fan favourite announced her retirement in 2019 but rejoined the U.S. ski team a year ago after knee surgery allowed her to hit the slopes without pain in a remarkable recovery.
"For so long I've just been in this state of
pain management," said Vonn. "I'm not the person that's in pain anymore. I'm the person that's living my best life every single day."
'PEOPLE DOUBTED ME'
The 82-times World Cup winner returned to the World Cup circuit in December 2024, finishing 14th in the super-G at St Moritz, Switzerland, and earned a pair of top-10 finishes in the downhill and super-G a month later in St. Anton, Austria.
But critics soon followed, as she crashed out at Cortina and failed to finish at Garmisch-Partenkirchen weeks later.
"A lot of people doubted me. I never doubted myself, but at the same time, with all the negative voices, sometimes it was hard to hear my own voice," said Vonn, who won gold in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
Her breakthrough moment came in March, when she got on the podium for the first time since her retirement in Sun Valley, finishing second in the super-G at the Women's World Cup Finals, a moment that she says "changed everything."
"When I crossed the finish line and saw two next to my name, I lost it," she told Reuters in New York on Tuesday.
"The only race that was more emotional for me was winning the Olympics. That's how special it was."
Vonn, whose women's World Cup wins record was eclipsed by compatriot Mikaela Shiffrin in 2023, is now aiming to become the oldest woman to medal in Olympic alpine skiing if she qualifies.
"I do like breaking records, so even if it's an old woman record, I'd take it," said Vonn, who brought Norwegian former Olympic champion Aksel Lund Svindal on as a coach in August.
"I'm in a much better place than I ever have been. And I'm excited to be standing in the starting gate with that perspective."
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York, additional reporting by Hussein Waaile; Editing by Ken Ferris)
