Lindsey Vonn ends retirement and returns to skiing and Team USA at age 40

On By Littum

PYEONGCHANG-GUN, SOUTH KOREA - FEBRUARY 21: Bronze medalist Lindsey Vonn of the United States celebrates during the Ladies' Downhill victory ceremony on Day 12 of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics at the Jeongseon Alpine Center on February 1, 2018 in Pyeongchang, Pyeongchang. gun, South Korea. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Legend Lindsey Vonn is returning to skiing after retiring five years ago due to knee problems. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Three-time Olympic medalist and four-time world champion skier Lindsey Vonn is returning to skiing, five years after retiring after the 2018 Winter Olympics. Her decision was revealed in the New York Times on Thursday.

Vonn spent time this summer and fall training on the snow in New Zealand and Europe, and will rejoin the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team — starting this weekend for training in Colorado.

So what changed for Vonn? Why has she decided to return when she never intended to? It’s all about her right knee, which had been severely damaged by accidents over years of skiing. She had had several surgeries on it throughout her career and hadn’t been able to ski (or even walk) without pain for a while. This is what prompted her to retire, but the pain continued.

In an attempt to finally live a pain-free everyday life, Vonn decided to have knee replacement surgery earlier this year. The results were overwhelming. A month after the surgery, Vonn told the Times that she was able to straighten her right leg, which she hadn’t been able to do in a decade. Weeks later, she was doing leg-strengthening exercises she hadn’t been able to do in eight years.

When she finally got back on her skis after the surgery, her first casual runs went so well that she contacted her former coach. Just like that, they went to New Zealand to train. Vonn began tackling the slopes like she hadn’t done in years.

“I had been able to get stronger by then and could really start pushing my knee and all that was going really well,” Vonn said. “I ran 15 runs. I haven’t run 15 runs in one day since my mid-20s.”

Nothing is certain for Vonn right now. She starts skiing again and tries to keep her expectations low, but she’s Lindsey Vonn. She made her WC debut at the age of 16 and has never been shy about how much she loves running. With a pair of skis strapped to her feet and a pain-free right knee, she has a shot.

“I try not to get too far ahead of myself because I have quite a few hoops to jump through,” Vonn said via the New York Times. “Obviously I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t hoping to race. I have aspirations. I love to go fast. How fast can I go? I don’t know.

“But I don’t want to put myself in a situation where I can fail. My goal is to enjoy this and hopefully that path leads me to World Cup races. I wouldn’t be back on the U.S. Ski Team if I didn’t have intentions.”

The 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics are 15 months away. She didn’t commit to anything right now, but Vonn couldn’t hide how excited she was about the opportunity to return to the Olympics and take on one of her favorite tracks.

“I’ve always enjoyed racing in Cortina and I’ve had a lot of success in Cortina,” she said. “I don’t know what the next few months and the next year and a half will bring me. So I can’t say right now if that’s a possibility.”

Vonn then paused and added, “But I think everyone knows how much I love Cortina.”

She may now say, “I don’t know,” but Vonn doesn’t know how to bet against herself. If she’s on top of Cortina in 15 months with her skis and goggles on, waiting for the buzzer to send her speeding down another snow-covered hill, no one in the world should be surprised.