The ‘miracle’ of Lindsey Vonn: How one of the great sports comebacks came to be

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Perusing the beginning checklist for the ladies’s alpine snowboarding World Cup, many of the numbers look the identical.

The doc states the opponents’ names, nationality, bib quantity and yr of start. Some 42 of the 54 opponents have been born within the Nineties, whereas 11 have been born within the 2000s.

After which there’s one girl who doesn’t fairly match the development, her yr stands proud a mile. It’s 1984, and it’s Lindsey Vonn.

“That is historical past within the making,” the announcer boisterously proclaims as Vonn prepares to begin her run down the white, gleaming slopes of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

“Lindsey, Lindsey!” the gang, one of many largest the occasion has ever hosted, chants. We could also be deep within the Italian Dolomites however Vonn’s title and recognition go far throughout the globe. Solely native favorite and Olympic gold medallist Sofia Goggia can command a rowdier din.

There’s a enormous ovation as Vonn crosses the road in twentieth in a downhill race (she was heading for the highest 5 earlier than a later error curtailed her progress) right here on this Saturday in mid-January. She provides a double wave to the gang, a few of whom are proudly waving U.S. flags. When she leaves the course, there’s a scrum of frantic folks to stroll by way of; she stops to signal their skis and their helmets, they yell her title and try to time their selfies in order that Vonn is within the image when she walks previous.

Lindsey Vonn skis down the Olympia delle Tofane run through the girls’s downhill on Jan. 17, 2025, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. (Julian Finney / Getty Pictures)

Because the chief of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, Anouk Patty, tells The Athletic: “You do a couple of laps together with her right here and also you see that everyone is watching her. She transcends the game.”

It was in Cortina in 2019 that Vonn knew her snowboarding profession was about to finish, when her physique was in a lot ache that she couldn’t end a race.

And it is going to be in Cortina in 2026 on the Winter Olympics, if all goes to plan, that she brings the curtain down on what’s actually one of many biggest careers within the historical past of snowboarding, however maybe additionally on certainly one of biggest comebacks trendy sport has witnessed.

How on earth did we get right here? That is the miracle of Lindsey Vonn.

“Miracle” is the phrase Vonn makes use of when chatting to assembled media after her downhill run in Cortina.

“The truth that I’m again here’s a miracle in itself,” she says, her mild, smiling, relaxed demeanor, full with trademark fluffy double bobble hat, incessantly contradicting the unyieldingly steely dedication that has characterised her profession.

“I used to be on tempo for a top-five outcome and I’ve to be pleased with that. … It has been six years and that is the quickest course with probably the most terrain that I’ve skied. The distinction in pace for me was rather a lot, so it was onerous for me to regulate.

“My physique can maintain rather a lot. I’m not like I used to be after I retired — I can take a success. I’ve bought titanium now.”

How she was when she retired was, once more in her personal phrases, damaged “past restore.”

“My physique is screaming at me to cease and it’s time for me to hear,” she mentioned as she ended a glittering profession of three Olympic medals (one gold in Vancouver in 2010), 4 World Cup titles and eight world championship medals.

5 years later, a knee substitute took the ache away and gave her a second likelihood. However what did folks assume when she made her shock announcement of a comeback?

“I believed: ‘She’s loopy’.” That was the response of Patrick Riml, who has identified and labored with Vonn for the perfect a part of 1 / 4 of a century, together with as alpine director of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Affiliation.

Vonn solutions questions at a press convention forward of this month’s world championships in Saalbach, Austria. Her first race is Thursday’s super-G. (Jens Büttner / image alliance through Getty Pictures)

He’s now Purple Bull’s head of athlete particular initiatives and, as a part of a partnership with the U.S. workforce, is working carefully with Vonn.

“But additionally it wasn’t a lot of a shock,” Riml provides of Vonn’s choice to return to the game.

“I’ve identified her since 1999 and I understand how loopy she is, clearly in a constructive method. Her dedication and her dedication… when she units herself a objective, it’s full-on and full-throttle. So yeah, she’s loopy, however the knee responded properly and it quickly made sense.”

There are various inquiries to ponder round Vonn’s comeback on the age of 40, six years older than any of the 54 opponents she confronted in Cortina.

The principle one, for somebody who achieved just about all there was to attain within the sport, is why?

“Properly, she was by no means planning on retiring in 2019, her physique mainly compelled her to,” Riml provides. “It was by no means that she’d finished every thing she wished and now it was time to do one thing totally different… it was compelled by accidents.”

In August, Riml travelled with Vonn to New Zealand, the place she tried snowboarding once more together with her titanium knee. It couldn’t have gone any higher.

“With this new knee that’s now part of me… I really feel like a complete new chapter of my life is unfolding earlier than my eyes,” she mentioned on social media.

“Every thing went properly and the plan was made to get a bit extra critical,” Riml provides.

The pair had saved in contact throughout Vonn’s retirement, however there was by no means any query of her making a comeback, attributable to how she completed the game in such appreciable ache.

“There have been days when she may solely have one single run as a result of her knee was so sore,” he says. “Now with the partial knee substitute and feeling so properly, and having a top quality of life she didn’t have for a very long time, she’s in a position to do issues she couldn’t for a few years. And he or she’s pain-free.

“It’s not enjoyable whenever you rise up within the morning and your knee hurts… you may need good situations for coaching, however it’s important to pull the plug after 10 minutes as a result of her knee is so sore.

“She’s having fun with it extra now.”

Vonn celebrates profitable the World Cup downhill on Jan. 20, 2018, in Cortina. She’s received there, the 2026 Olympic venue, a report 12 instances. (Tiziana Fabi / AFP through Getty Pictures)

Vonn’s story will not be distinctive amongst elite athletes in sport. There are various who discover it onerous to say goodbye.

Rower Sir Steve Redgrave retired after his fourth successive Olympic gold medal in 1996 and gave, like Vonn, an unequivocal assertion that he was finished. “Anyone who sees me in a ship has my permission to shoot me,” the Briton famously mentioned.

Redgrave did come again (and wasn’t shot) to win a fifth gold in Sydney in 2000. However his misgivings about persevering with, like with legends equivalent to Muhammad Ali in boxing, Michael Jordan in basketball, Michael Schumacher in Method One and Martina Hingis in tennis, all individuals who reached the very high of their sport after which got here again for extra, have been extra about thoughts than physique.

Vonn’s was virtually solely bodily. She wanted to be mounted — and the substitute knee has been the catalyst behind her second lease of snowboarding life.

The Minnesota native spent 5 post-retirement years having fun with working together with her basis and enterprise, she performed a little bit of tennis, however she did all of it in ache. Even strolling could be problematic.

She took recommendation from Tom Hackett, of the famend Steadman Clinic in Colorado, who has labored with the U.S. Ski Crew. He helped lead her to Dr Martin Roche, an knowledgeable in sophisticated knee restore.

Virtually a yr in the past, in April 2024, Vonn had surgical procedure on her proper knee, in layman’s phrases a partial knee substitute, with titanium alloy changing a bit little bit of bone.

After re-educating her personal physique and her knee, she may do bodily actions that had been past her capabilities for years.

It was then that she realised she would be capable to ski once more and the thought of a comeback for probably the most profitable downhill skier of all time (with 43 World Cup wins) shaped.

Quick ahead to winter and, 2,183 days after her final World Cup downhill, Vonn was again.

The moment outcomes, given her time away from the game and her age, have been unimaginable; 14th in St Moritz (Switzerland) in December after which sixth and fourth in St Anton (Austria) final month.

So properly has it gone that Riml, her shut confidant who consoled her after the Cortina downhill when that slight error ended her probabilities of a primary podium end since her comeback, says it hasn’t been difficult for him to assist allow Vonn’s return.

“I don’t assume it’s an actual problem (for me),” he says. “We went as much as Austria at 5 a.m. in October, it’s pitch darkish and he or she’s there with the largest smile on her face.

“That’s pure ardour for the game and he or she’s so extremely good at it, so the one problem for me is getting her right into a rhythm and the routines and a bit extra mileage in these legs.”

Contemplating how impressed everybody has been with Vonn since her comeback, it might be a shock to snowboarding outsiders that the preliminary response to ending her retirement was, properly, blended.

Right here’s a range:

• Michaela Dorfmeister (two-time Olympic champion): “Vonn ought to see a psychologist; does she wish to kill herself?”
• Pirmin Zurbriggen (four-time World Cup champion): “There’s a threat Vonn will tear her synthetic knee to items. I’ve the sensation that she hasn’t recognised the which means and objective of her different life in recent times — she has most likely suffered from now not being a celebrated champion.”
• Franz Klammer (Austrian snowboarding legend): “She’s gone utterly mad.”

Vonn was bowled over. However whereas some throughout the sport have been frosty, the U.S. workforce welcomed her with open arms.

Lauren Macuga, certainly one of Crew USA’s rising stars in snowboarding, says she’s benefitted from Vonn’s return to the slopes. (Kerstin Joensson / AFP through Getty Pictures)

U.S. skier Lauren Macuga, who at 22 years outdated simply received her first World Cup race, grew up watching Vonn. Macuga was born in 2002, two years after Vonn made her World Cup debut.

“I at all times watched her rising up, and now I get to be on the workforce together with her, it’s very cool,” she says.

“She’s been so open about serving to all of us. Any likelihood she will get she’s proper there telling us what we will do to enhance, the place we should be within the line. You possibly can ask her something and he or she’ll inform us. And it’s cool as a result of she doesn’t need to, she may maintain all of it to herself and go on a one-woman prepare!”

U.S. workforce boss Patty is grateful that Vonn is sharing her recommendation and expertise together with her teammates. With Vonn comes a roadshow all of its personal — her personal coaches and medical folks, her personal PR machine — and sure, when the U.S. workforce have completed their run in Cortina, they keep and watch their teammates whereas Vonn does her personal factor. If you’re larger than the game, maybe that’s an inevitability.

However in what’s in the end a person sport, Vonn has change into de facto player-coach too.

Patty explains: “You possibly can hope for that to occur and encourage it, however on the finish of the day it’s as much as her to do it and for them to have interaction with it. She’s embraced the position of training and instructing the following technology on the best way to be a extremely skilled ski racer.

“As a 40-year-old girl who’s doing one of the vital gnarly sports activities on the market, it’s not prefer it’s straightforward. It’s actually intense with large accidents and life-or-death conditions. Coming again and doing that, it appeals to individuals who know nothing in regards to the sport. We’ve all gone to factors in our lives when age catches up, when the knees get a bit creakier.

“She’s blown that barrier away. It’s the Olympics subsequent yr and that retirement ceiling simply bought bumped up by eight-plus years.”

There have been technical challenges, in addition to psychological and bodily, and people will proceed within the coming months as Vonn makes an attempt to fine-tune her physique and her snowboarding tools in what may be very a lot (properly, as issues stand) a 15-month enterprise, which takes on this week’s world championships and, in principle, ends in Cortina subsequent February.

“The knee has been completely high quality, she feels higher snowboarding now than she did 5 years in the past,” Patty provides.

“You possibly can see far more symmetry in her stability and her turning. Earlier than she retired she needed to favour the knee a bit. That’s gone now, so technically she will be able to ski a bit extra easily and with extra stability…

“Now we have to maintain actuality in thoughts, however she’s surpassed all expectations. It’s been fairly extraordinary, truly.”

Riml provides: “Individuals speak about expertise… properly, all of them have expertise. It comes right down to dedication and willingness to do no matter it takes to be as quick as you’ll be able to. That’s what she does. When she has a objective, every thing else is put to at least one aspect… My solely downside (with Lindsey) is holding her again.

“Individuals have been very outspoken about how silly that is. I feel she’s already proved them fallacious.”

A view from the Olympia delle Tofane slope in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, the place Lindsey Vonn hopes to race once more on the 2026 Olympics. (Francesco Scaccianoce / Getty Pictures)

In stunning, picturesque Cortina they’re very a lot gearing up for subsequent yr’s Olympics, the second time the realm has hosted the largest occasion in winter sports activities.

Pictures of Vonn and her opponents adorn buildings within the excessive road and Olympic rings proudly shine from the revamped Olympic Stadium.

It’s the place the place Vonn has already received 12 races, the place she knew her profession was supposedly over in 2019 and the place she might benefit from the final redemption story in 2026.

“The humorous factor is that after we began speaking about this, the plan was, ‘Let’s see the way it goes, we have now a variety of work to do’,” Riml says. “And now have a look at her. I’m so enthusiastic about this, I can’t even let you know.”

On Vonn’s official web site, her appreciable profession achievements are listed in some element; her Olympic triumphs, her world championship success, her infinite victories and her comeback from a two-year damage layoff to interrupt extra data (yep, she’s finished it earlier than).

The timeline ends in 2019. The comeback has not but been written, however Vonn plans for there to be loads of content material.

“To be truly competing right here was undoubtedly not what I anticipated,” she mentioned this week forward of the world championships in Austria.

“I didn’t anticipate doing so properly so rapidly. This season has been about managing my expectations and I’m making an attempt to proceed doing that right here.”

However then she provides: “I’m quick, I’m aggressive, I’m able to compete for a medal.”

Good luck managing these expectations. She’s bulletproof, nothing to lose, she is titanium… and the fairytale continues.

(High picture: Getty; Francis Bompard/Agence Zoom, Mattia Ozbot)