PARIS — Lindsey Vonn’s knee feels “incredible” following an April surgery and she is back on the slopes, but it is unclear whether she will come out of retirement to compete on the Alpine skiing World Cup circuit this season, a source close to the American said.
The four-time World Cup overall champion and Olympic gold medalist retired from the sport in February 2019, saying her body was “broken beyond repair” and screaming at her to stop.
But Vonn was spotted training in New Zealand earlier this year and more recently on the slopes of Solden, Austria, where the new season kicks off later this month, fuelling speculation the 39-year-old is eyeing a comeback, according to Olympics.com.
“Lindsey underwent a partial knee replacement in April,” a source close to Vonn told Reuters when asked about rumours she may return to competition.
“She has been recovering well since then and her knee feels incredible. She was cleared to ski and has begun a return-to-skiing progression,” the source said.
“As of right now she has no definitive plans or timeline.”
A speed specialist, Vonn is considered one of the greatest ski racers of all time and helped raise the profile of the sport in the US.
At the 2010 Games in Vancouver, she became the first American woman to win an Olympic downhill gold. She also won a super-G Olympic bronze in 2010 and a downhill bronze at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
Vonn’s 82 World Cup victories puts her second on the women’s all-time winner’s list behind fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin.Shiffrin will not compete in the downhill when the Alpine Ski World Cup season begins later this month, her representative confirmed.
Shiffrin, owner of a record 97 World Cup wins, missed several weeks after injuring her knee in a high-speed crash in January while competing in the World Cup downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Her representative, Megan Harrod, cited the demanding downhill training schedule as a deciding factor, with the twice Olympic gold medallist focusing on the slalom, giant slalom and super-G instead.
“The amount of time downhill training takes is just too much to do the discipline justice,” Harrod said according to Reuters.
Shiffrin etched her name in the history books when she collected a record 87th career World Cup win in March 2023, surpassing retired Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark’s mark that had stood since 1989.
She told the Associated Press that she briefly contemplated retiring from the sport after the January crash and would consider bringing back the downhill discipline into her schedule in the future.
“No downhill races, not this season,” the US ski star announced at a media event organized by her equipment supplier Atomic in Bergheim, Austria.
Shiffrin landed hard in the safety nets during a fall in the downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the previous season. After a six-week injury break, she lost out to Lara Gut-Behrami in the battle for the overall World Cup.
Shiffrin extended her record career haul to 97 World Cup wins with a pair of victories to close out last season in March.
The Alpine Ski World Cup season begins on Oct. 26 in Soelden, Austria.
In the coming season, Shiffrin could become the first female ski racer to break the 100 World Cup wins mark.
The 29-year-old American currently has 97 victories – eleven ahead of the previous record holder Ingemar Stenmark.
Shiffrin emphasized that her focus is fully on the slaloms, giant slaloms and super-Gs, of which she wants to compete in all nine this winter.
The convalescing Olympic champion Sofia Goggia wants to return to the World Cup at the speed season opener shortly before Christmas.
“If all goes well, I would like to compete again in Beaver Creek in mid-December,” said the 31-year-old in Milan this week.
Goggia has won the Downhill World Cup four times to date and was crowned Olympic champion in her strongest discipline in Pyeongchang in 2018.
However, she was repeatedly thwarted by injuries during her career. In February 2024, Goggia broke her right tibia and tibial malleolus during training and had to end last season prematurely.
Shiffrin capped her season that was marred by a six-week injury layoff with her record-extending 60th win in slalom and 97th overall at the World Cup finals last March at Saalbach-Hinterglemm in Austria.
The American star trailed Anna Swenn Larsson of Sweden after the first run but ultimately won the season-ending slalom by 0.54 seconds from Mina Fuerst Holtmann of Norway, while Swenn Larsson dropped to third, 0.63 off the pace.
