Lindsey Vonn crossed the end line after a powerful run, waved to the group, after which radioed ideas again to her six U.S. teammates nonetheless to ski.
After nearly six years away from the game’s prime degree, the 40-year-old American alpine snowboarding star was again in a well-known scene Saturday, returning to World Cup racing with a 14th-place end in a Tremendous-G race in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Vonn completed in 1.16.36, 1.18 seconds off the lead of winner Cornelia Huetter of Austria, the 2024 World Cup downhill champion. Switzerland’s Lara Intestine-Behrami and Italy’s Sofia Goggia rounded out the rostrum. Fifty-seven skiers began the race, with 46 ending.
Racing the monitor the place she’s gained thrice in Tremendous-G, Vonn received off to a gradual begin, posting one of many slowest splits within the first sector of the course. However she was a lot stronger from there, posting top-five occasions in two of the ultimate three sectors.
Lauren Macuga was the one American quicker than Vonn, tying for seventh in 1:15.93.
Vonn gained three Olympic medals and 4 general World Cup titles earlier than a rash of knee accidents pressured her to retire from the game after the World Championships in February 2019. In her last race there, she took third within the downhill.
A knee substitute surgical procedure earlier this yr left her pain-free and considering a comeback to the game. Final month, she informed the New York Instances she was planning her return, and simply two weeks later, she was again in competitors, snowboarding two downhill and two Tremendous-G races on the FIS Fall Pageant — a degree under the World Cup circuit — at Copper Mountain in Colorado.
Her finishes in these races — which ranged from nineteenth to twenty seventh — have been adequate to earn her the factors wanted to use for entry to World Cup races as a wild card. The Worldwide Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) — the game’s governing physique — permits for entries for retired skiers who’ve earned a minimal variety of factors whereas additionally attaining sure benchmarks previously, reminiscent of successful Olympic or World Championship gold medals.
Final week, Vonn served as a forerunner, testing the monitor for circumstances and security, forward of the ladies’s downhill and Tremendous-G races on the famed Birds of Prey World Cup course in Beaver Creek, Colo.
If she’s in a position to return to World Cup-winning type, it will be unprecedented in girls’s alpine snowboarding. Earlier this yr, Italy’s Federica Brignone turned the oldest girl to ever win a World Cup race at 34. On the lads’s aspect, although, France’s Johan Clarey medaled on the 2022 Olympics in Beijing at 41 and made a World Cup podium at 42.
When Vonn retired, she was essentially the most profitable American World Cup skier of all time, with 82 particular person occasion wins, second solely to Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark. Fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin — who’s recovering from accidents sustained in a fall — has since handed each girls and sits one win away from 100.
A four-time Olympian, Vonn’s three medals embody downhill gold in Vancouver in 2010. She gained World Championships golds in downhill and Tremendous-G in 2009 and was the general World Cup champion three straight years from 2008 to 2010 and once more in 2012.
However accidents stalled her profession, price her the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and finally led to her exit from snowboarding. Her final World Cup race earlier than Saturday was in January 2019 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
That’s additionally the host venue for the 2026 Olympics. Vonn has not discounted the potential of competing on the Olimpia delle Tofane course — the place she’s gained 12 occasions — within the 2026 Video games, and Saturday’s end result makes that objective look inside attain.
(Picture of Lindsey Vonn throughout Saturday’s run: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP by way of Getty Photos)
