US ski nice Lindsey Vonn confirmed Friday that she’s going to make her World Cup comeback in St. Moritz from December 21-22, practically six years after retiring.
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“She’s back,” wrote Pink Bull, the skier’s sponsor, on Instagram, posting a video during which the 40-year-old former Olympic and world champion smiled: “I hear St Moritz is nice this time of year.”
Vonn left the game in February 2019 following a sequence of main accidents however she has been freed from ache since a proper knee substitute in April.
“One thing I realise is life is really short and if you have an opportunity you have to take it. There’s nothing I love more than ski racing.”
Vonn was probably the most adorned girls’s skier with 82 World Cup victories when she retired. Her mark has since been eclipsed by fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin’s 99.
She requested a “wild card” entry to compete in two super-G races at St. Moritz, Switzerland on December 21 and 22, benefiting from a brand new invitation system that enables former stars to return to the elite circuit after years away from competitors and to have higher beginning positions.
“She says if she had known earlier about the benefits of this operation, she would have done it a long time ago and would never have stopped her career,” French skier Alexis Pinturault mentioned on Thursday.
Together with Vonn, alpine snowboarding this season additionally noticed the return of one other legend in October within the type of Marcel Hirscher.
The Austrian, now competing for the Netherlands, nonetheless critically injured his knee in early December and ended his season and his second profession after solely three races. – ‘Not a simple path’ –
Vonn “has knees that are much more damaged than Marcel’s were and it ended very badly for him,” noticed 2021 total World Cup winner Pinturault.
“Obviously I wish her the best and I hope that she will manage to do something very interesting for herself and for the sport, but her path is not easy,” he added.
“I’m happy that she can do what she loves the most again,” mentioned Italian Sofia Goggia, a former Olympic downhill champion, and pace occasion specialist like Vonn.
“I’m also a little worried about her, because she’s someone I love very much and we do a dangerous sport.”
Final week, Vonn took half in two super-Gs in a lower-level competitors at Copper Mountain in the US and completed nineteenth and twenty fourth, simply over two seconds behind the winner every time.
“It was a success. Some say I was slow but I think it was great,” she mentioned.
Earlier than returning to competitors in Switzerland, the American would be the opener this weekend on the World Cup in Beaver Creek, the place a downhill and a super-G are happening.
She recorded her first World Cup victory in 2004 and gained three Olympic medals together with downhill gold in 2010 in Vancouver.
Vonn additionally gained 20 World Cup titles, together with 4 total crystal globes, eight world championship medals and secured 137 World Cup podiums.
The subsequent Winter Olympics happen in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026.
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