Lindsey Vonn proved she never lost her skiing prowess.
The Olympic gold-medalist Alpine skier returned to the podium over the weekend, finishing in second place in a World Cup super-G race on Sunday. The result came six years after she first retired from the sport and 11 months after undergoing a partial knee replacement.
The 40-year-old star became the oldest female Alpine ski racer to finish on the podium.
“It was f—ing hard,” Vonn said. “This is not easy what I’m doing. It just felt really good to say I did it. That I can still do it.”
Vonn was emotional after the race, which was won by Swiss competitor Lara Gut-Behrami.
“Age is just a number,” Vonn said. “If you feel good, and you’re mentally still driven, and you work hard, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.”
She added that the doubters and naysayers also fueled her.
“Sometimes the negative voices, they drive me more than the positive ones,” Vonn said. “I use all that as fuel. It propelled me through some tough times this year. I knew that I could do it.
“When I crossed the finish line, there’s a lot of relief to be where I know I can be and to silence so many negative voices that have just been surrounding me, it feels like, all season. It was just a nice exclamation point to put on the season.”
On Friday, Vonn spoke about her goal to compete in the 2026 Olympics in Cortina, Italy.
“These Olympics, it’s all I really wanted to do,” she told The Associated Press. “Cortina is one of my favorite places, so that’s the carrot that was dangling in front of me.
“As soon as that’s gone, then I can go back to skiing some powder and playing tennis and living the life that I’ve been living for the last six years.”
Vonn last medaled in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in South Korea. She has 82 World Cup wins in her career and three Olympic medals, with two bronze to her one gold.
Vonn said Sunday he planned to rest for a few weeks before heading to Europe for more testing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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