Moments after her first Olympic race 24 years ago, Lindsey Kildow, then 17 and several years from the marriage that would change her name to Lindsey Vonn, was giddy. A little-known Olympic qualifier from a tiny Minnesota ski hill, she had finished a startling sixth, the best result by a female American skier at the Salt Lake City Winter Games.
That day, standing next to her in the snow at the bottom of the racecourse, I asked if she was as surprised as everyone else. Her smile dimmed slightly. “Maybe,” she answered, unconvincingly. “I mean, for a life goals assignment in grade school I did write that I wanted to win more Olympic ski races than any woman ever has. And I wanted to make it to a bunch of Olympics.”
When those 2002 comments were repeated to her last week, Vonn, 41, who will try to become the oldest Alpine Olympic medalist by six years at the Milan-Cortina Games, guffawed.
“I sounded so nonchalant,” Vonn, the only American to win the women’s Olympic downhill, said between laughs in a videoconference interview from Saalbach, Austria. “I said a lot of funny things as a teenager. But I definitely never lacked lofty goals.”
In late 2024, to the shock of her former ski racing colleagues — one insisted she was “insane” — Vonn, a four-time Olympian, ended her retirement from the sport to pursue a daredevil comeback focused on competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Now, on the eve of the women’s downhill, Vonn is facing the biggest challenge of her resurgence after rupturing her left anterior cruciate ligament in a World Cup race a week ago.
On Tuesday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Vonn said that her injured knee was not swollen and that she felt “stable, strong” and confident she could race on Sunday with the help of a brace.
“This is not, obviously, what I had hoped for,” she said at a news conference. “I’ve been working really hard to come into these Games in a much different position. I know what my chances were before the crash, and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today, but I know there’s still a chance.”
Her return to racing had been so successful, with two victories and five top-three finishes in eight World Cup races this winter, Vonn had been a gold medal favorite in the downhill and super-G.
Her extraordinary quest for more Olympic glory, especially now that she has just one good — albeit partly titanium — knee, has already dominated the news cycle in the days leading to the start of the Games. Vonn’s crossover celebrity combined with her plan to race in the perilous women’s downhill on Sunday draws the spotlight.
Vonn’s recent injury could undoubtedly affect how she finishes, but she insisted that she would compete, and that her appearance carried a statement of its own.
“My job is ski racing but there’s another part to this — I hope my story gives women permission to chase their dreams and not give up on themselves at any age,” Vonn said from Austria.
Characteristically, Vonn, whose comeback was made possible by partial right knee replacement surgery in 2024, spent last year with one clear purpose.
“Everything I’ve been doing since I came back is about preparing for the Olympics,” she said, adding, “We all know the goal and it’s not just to participate.”
She continued: “No one has higher expectations for myself than me. And I’m sure that everyone can assume what those expectations are. So I don’t need to say it because it’s my goal. I’m excited to throw myself down the mountain — give it 110 percent in my final Olympics. I can’t wait.”
While in bed at night or during gym workouts lately, Vonn’s mind has drifted to the specific turns and jumps of the formidable Olympia delle Tofane racecourse, which will decide the women’s downhill winner. A fixture in elite ski racing since the 1950s, the course drops 1.6 miles from top to bottom and requires racers to steer through narrow gaps in craggy mountain outcroppings that loom just feet away from their skis, all while they reach a top speed of 85 miles per hour. It is a setting that has brought out the best in Vonn, including 12 career victories, the most by any racer at Cortina.
“When I think about the course at night, my heart rate escalates,” said Vonn, who won three Olympic medals from 2010 to 2018. “I’ve visualized the course when I’m doing intervals on the bike in the gym and my heart rate goes above max. The thought of it gets me so excited that I can’t think about it as much as I’d like.
“Because the chance to finish an Olympic career at Cortina is incredibly meaningful.”
Vonn was forced off the slopes in 2019 by a litany of injuries from multiple crashes — she could not straighten her right leg — a disheartening end to a storied career that included 82 World Cup race victories, the women’s record when she stopped competing. Her knee replacement surgery was aimed at improving her quality of life. It became an astonishing bonus when she discovered she could ski pain free for the first time in nearly a decade.
That opened the door to a return to racing, and everything that has followed since, including facing her final Olympics with a ruptured A.C.L.
“All of my experience in my life has given me a lot of confidence in knowing what my body can and cannot do,” Vonn said in Cortina. “I’ve been in this position before. I know how to handle it. I’ve been on the world stage before. I know how to handle that. So, everything together, even though I don’t want to be in this position, I know how to be in this position.”
The 17-year-old who thought back to her grade-school assignment where she described her hopes of becoming the woman with the most Olympic medals and appearing in a bunch of Olympics lingers. She is not done yet.
“I’m going to lean into it,” she said from Austria. “I’ve been thinking about how I would feel in the Olympic starting gate for months and I can’t tell you how excited that makes me. I know it’s going to be so overwhelming and so intense and my adrenaline will be so high.
“And I’ll never have that feeling again. So I’m going to enjoy it and give it everything I have.”
Her injury and the challenge it poses won’t change her approach.
“I’ve been through a lot, and this is another amazing chapter,” she said in Cortina. “I don’t know if it’s the best chapter, but it’s a pretty damn good comeback if I can pull it off.”
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