Comeback queen Lindsey Vonn rounds on critics, eyes world podium
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US skier Lindsey Vonn holds a press conference in Hinterglemm on Feb 3 ahead of the Saalbach World Championships.
PHOTO: AFP
SAALBACH – United States speed queen Lindsey Vonn on Feb 3 rounded on critics of her comeback to elite ski racing at the age of 40, calling the finger-wagging “inappropriate and disrespectful”.
The American retired after the 2019 World Championships, but made a comeback this season after a knee reconstruction left her pain-free for the first time in years.
Vonn has impressed on her return to the slopes in what she said was a season designed to get in shape for a tilt at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan/Cortina d’Ampezzo.
But speaking ahead of the World Championships in Saalbach, Austria, she delivered a fiery tirade at critics who have openly questioned her sanity and life.
“I don’t think I really deserved the disrespectful comments... I of course expected criticism in that, ‘Is my knee safe?’ That’s a valid question,” she said.
“But there were a lot of questions that had to do with me as a person and my psychological state and what life is outside of skiing. And that was completely inappropriate and disrespectful and I didn’t deserve it.
“No one asked Marcel (Hirscher) if his life was fulfilled outside of ski racing, or if he needed to see a psychologist,” she added in reference to the Austrian slalomer whose comeback this season was cut short by injury.
“They were only directed at me.”
Vonn also said she felt no pressure coming into the Saalbach worlds, even if she was ready to compete for a medal.
“It’s going to be a special World Championships for me,” she said of her ninth outing at the worlds, which started in Bormio, Italy back in 2005.
“I didn’t anticipate doing so well so quickly. Competing here was definitely not something I anticipated. (But) I’m fast, I’m competitive, I think I’m ready to compete for a medal. Hopefully I’m fast enough to be on the podium.”
On her fitness, she said her knee felt “incredible”. Just being back on snow, Vonn insisted, had made her feel satisfied.
“This is just the icing on the cake, or the cherry on top for me again,” she said.
Turning to her potential participation in the team combination, in which two athletes from the same team race one run of downhill and one of slalom, Vonn said she would love the chance to do it alongside Mikaela Shiffrin.
“I don’t know if she’s even competing,” she said of Shiffrin, who has 99 World Cup victories to her name and who made her comeback from a November injury just last week.
“But if there’s a chance to compete with her, I would absolutely compete with her.” AFP
