After all, Lindsey Vonn spent Sunday with her recovered family. There was a communal wait in the starting area of the route in St. Moritz, where the runners received updates and start delays every quarter of an hour. A storm had hit the Engadine, where the Corviglia ski area below the Piz Nair is known for being a bit sensitive to the weather: When the weather is nice, there are few nicer places in the Alps to ski in the snow in the sunlight. In wind and weather, however, the only option is to fly blind, which is not recommended at the speeds of a World Cup Super-G. At lunchtime, the jury decided to reject it – which also made it clear that Lindsey Vonn would have to fulfill the promise she made on Saturday somewhere else.
The American has never had a problem with being the center of attention.
“We are a family and I am back with my family,” Vonn formulated the credo of her return on Saturday when she made her comeback in the World Cup in the still sunny Engadin. Six years had passed since her departure after the 2019 World Ski Championships in Åre, Sweden, when Vonn had to involuntarily leave skiing after a series of long-term injuries and numerous operations. It was a farewell to the life Vonn had always dreamed of and everything that went with it: the American never had a problem with being the center of attention, on the contrary. And even if a first race is still not enough for a sporting assessment: her nature has definitely not changed. The returned Lindsey Vonn immediately has the ski circus under control as an attraction; she is more like the head again than just a member of the so-called family.
Vonn later completed a veritable interview marathon; her euphoria was evident in every statement. She said once again that her doctors had approved the plan to ski professionally with a partial knee replacement and that she “wouldn’t even think” about her knee. And then it was back to the story of these past years, in which she had gotten her body in shape, written a book and spent a lot of time off the slopes. And in which she missed being an athlete and the trappings that went with it.
:“Skiing is a strength sport, the hip muscles are crucial”
Martin Hager was Lindsey Vonn’s trainer for a long time. He still advises her today and explains how a 40-year-old with a knee replacement can return to the slopes.
The 40-year-old continues to define herself through her 82 World Cup victories, and she receives endless recognition for them on the mountain racing slopes. But there is a hard truth that numerous ski legends have had to realize before her: outside of places like St. Moritz, Cortina d’Ampezzo or Vail/Colorado, World Cup victories count for comparatively little; not least financially. At home in the USA, Vonn was recently known because of relationships with the golfer Tiger Woods, with an ex-footballer and with an ice hockey professional – as part of the US sports society, in which skiing only plays a subordinate role.
It was therefore foreseeable that their comeback would be accompanied by discord. Vonn has always been said to have a certain desire for recognition behind closed doors; unlike other superfigures such as Mikaela Shiffrin or Marcel Hirscher, she is more polarizing. The fact that she was now accused of being a “full shot” by the Austrian former international Franz Klemm, and that the Swiss ex-runner Sonja Nef called her “stupid” – that was too drastic, however. In reality, Vonn not only brings attention to herself, but by extension to everyone else. “I don’t have time to talk about these negative things,” Vonn said coolly on Saturday.
The word family is often used – but also often lived reluctantly
But just as Vonn’s character hasn’t changed in his six years of absence, that’s also the case at the Ski World Cup. The word family is often used, but reluctantly used between competitors – and that’s exactly what Vonn is, as shown in her first race. In contrast to Hirscher, for example, whose comeback had the character of a farewell tour from the start before it ended tragically in a torn cruciate ligament, Vonn has come back to win again. 15th place in the first Super-G doesn’t sound too spectacular, but she later said that she hadn’t taken the full risk yet; that was planned for the second Super-G.
Vonn will need her vintage mode and will have to be on the edge between genius and madness on two skis again in order to endanger the trio at the top: The Italian Sofia Goggia has established herself as a legitimate successor to Vonn with her skiing style, the Swiss Lara It feels like Gut-Behrami has been in top form for a decade and recently an Austrian, Cornelia Hütter, has won races again, such as the Super-G in St. Moritz. Behind this, however, there is a certain performance gap in the women’s speed area and with it an opportunity for Vonn to soon fulfill her promise of competitiveness. On Sunday, for example, it took a winter storm in the Engadine to stop it.
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