Saalbach (Austria) (AFP) – US star Lindsey Vonn said her 15th-placed finish in the women’s downhill at the World Ski Championships in Saalbach would not silence critics of her return to action at the age of 40. A raft of former skiers and commentators have openly questioned Vonn’s sanity and life following her decision to come out of retirement. Vonn has called the finger-wagging “inappropriate and disrespectful,” hinting that she had been picked upon because she was female.
But she insisted Saturday that a life without “haters” probably means she’s not performing. “There are always going to be critics,” said Vonn. “Like no matter what I do, someone’s going to talk shit about me and that is what it is. Honestly, if you don’t have haters then you’re probably not doing that well so, bring it on!” Vonn certainly showed that she still has what it takes to compete at the highest table of elite alpine ski racing with her top-15 finish.
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In her ninth world champs, she might have missed out on a ninth world medal, but she was left beaming after the race in the Austrian resort. Having retired after a downhill bronze at the Are worlds in 2019, Vonn made an ambitious comeback this season after a knee reconstruction operation. She said the replacement of part of her knee with titanium had left her pain-free for the first time in years. Vonn seemed to have little problem physically on the 2.9km-long Ulli Maier course, which proved to be more testing than athletes and pundits had at first thought.
The race was surprisingly won by Vonn’s teammate Breezy Johnson, who only made her return to the slopes in December after serving a 14-month ban for missing three drugs tests. “At the world championships, I always have high expectations of myself,” said Vonn, who struck a golden speed double at the 2009 Val d’Isere worlds and has notched up a further three silver and three bronze medals. “When everything is working together, I know what I’m capable of. Right now, I don’t have all the puzzle pieces put together. I have the corners, I’m missing some of the middle pieces. But all in all, the biggest goal for me was to have a plan and to execute it.”
– One year from Cortina –
Saturday’s downhill came exactly one year to the day ahead of the blue riband event at next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan/Cortina d’Ampezzo. That fact was not lost on Vonn, who has consistently said that she was approaching this season as a year of preparation and equipment testing for a serious launch at Olympic glory on Italian snow when she will be 41 years of age. “In the start, I put pressure on myself as if it was a practice run for the Olympics,” said the 2010 Olympic downhill champion, who also has two bronzes (2010 super-G, 2018 downhill) to her name.
“And I did exactly what I came here to do. Clearly, not everything is working as well as it should. I know I can be stronger. I know I can get my material to work better for me. It’s like jumping in a Formula One car and having no training. You need to make adjustments and I need to make adjustments to make everything work as best as it can for me. There’s a lot of pieces that are on the board but not in the right place. So I think it’s good progress.”
Vonn added of finishing the Saalbach downhill one place ahead of 2018 Olympic champion Sofia Goggia, who also won silver in Beijing in 2022: “I’m ahead of Sofia and I think in Cortina, she’s the number one person to beat there. So it’s not like I’m skiing badly. It’s just all the pieces aren’t together.” And Vonn was in no doubt where she’d like to be come the Olympic downhill. “Not in the same position (as Saalbach), I’ll tell you that!” she said. “I have time. It is a year. I hope to be in a much different place in a year. Mentally, today gives me a lot of confidence knowing that I can execute when the pressure’s on.”
© 2024 AFP
