Her first career podium. The women’s World Cup wins mark. A course-record 12 victories. The family reunions with her Italy-based sister. And a rare European race visit by her mother.
Lindsey Vonn is attempting to recover from a left knee injury in time to try and win an Olympic medal next weekend at age 41.
One of the biggest reasons she came back in the first place after nearly six years of retirement — and what’s motivating her now — is that she wants to return to the town hosting women’s races at the Milan Cortina Winter Games.
Vonn is the queen of Cortina d’Ampezzo, the resort known as “the Queen of the Dolomites.” Her memories there go back nearly a quarter century.
“I don’t think I would have tried this comeback if the Olympics weren’t in Cortina,” Vonn said before her injury. “If it had been anywhere else, I would probably say it’s not worth it. But for me, there’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back and it’s pulled me back one last time.”
Vonn recently looked back at her career in Cortina during an interview with The Associated Press:
An unfinished debut nearly a quarter century ago
Vonn’s first race in Cortina was back in January 2002, before some of her current competitors were even born.
Approaching what would be her first Olympics a month later at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, Vonn’s debut in Cortina was a World Cup super-G and she didn’t finish it.
“I was skiing pretty well at the time, but I wasn’t really putting everything together,” she said. “And I remember in Cortina being nervous about making the Olympic team. I don’t think I skied badly. But I didn’t finish, so at that point I definitely hadn’t been able to put all the pieces together.”
Demoted to skiing’s minor leagues
Vonn’s Cortina record doesn’t have an entry for 2003.
Why?
“Oh, I got demoted,” she said. “I was sent back to Europa Cup. They definitely put all their weight behind Julia (Mancuso),” referring to skiing’s “minor leagues” circuit and her former teammate.
“At that point I hadn’t 100% committed to speed. … I had been racing more tech races than I had speed, so I was still kind of not sure where I fit in and I was still super skinny at the time and I was just trying to figure everything out.”
Vonn’s demotion motivated her to hire a physical trainer and get into better shape.
A memorable video session with a trusted coach
Turns out, it didn’t take Vonn very long “to figure everything out.”
When she returned to Cortina in 2004, Vonn recorded the first World Cup podium result of her career.
In the first of two downhills that weekend, Vonn finished fifth in what was her first time racing downhill on the Olympia delle Tofane course.
The next day, she finished third in a race won by then Olympic champion Carole Montillet. Lindsey Kildow, as she was still referred to, placed 0.24 seconds behind and only one hundredth behind second-place finisher Renate Goetschl.
“Cortina was really the turning point for me. It’s really where I solidified my mental routine, my physical routine,” Vonn said. “That was the first time I really felt confident enough in what I was doing that I belonged on the podium.”
It was a video session with Alex Hoedlmoser — who has coached Vonn since she was 16 and still coaches her with the U.S. team now — after Vonn’s fifth-place finish that made something click with her.
“He’s like, ‘See, that wasn’t that hard, was it?’ And I was like, ‘No, I can do this.’ And he’s like, ‘Yes, you can,’” Vonn said. “I remember it very vividly.
“And then when I did get on the podium, it was such a great feeling, and I remember calling my dad, and my grandparents, and my mom, and crying, and it was a really special moment, and really a turning point for me in my career, where I really believed that I could be amongst the best in the world.”
A comfort zone she shares only with Lake Louise
Vonn didn’t win her first race in Cortina until 2008. But ever since that 2004 podium, she has felt comfortable there.
“It’s kind of like Lake Louise where I don’t have to think too much about it,” Vonn said, referring to the Canadian resort where she won 18 races. “I know where to go, I know what it takes, and it’s a very special place for me and no matter how many wins or losses I’ve had there, that won’t change.”
A family reunion for a record-breaking weekend
While Tiger Woods may have stolen the show, what Vonn likes to remember about when she broke Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s 35-year-old World Cup wins record in 2015 with victory No. 63, in Cortina, is that she was surrounded by her family.
“I have a big family and they really haven’t come to hardly any World Cups in my career, unfortunately,” Vonn said. “That was a really special weekend. My dad and his wife and my mom and her husband, my sister Laura, were there. It was really special. I don’t have many pictures or memories of my family being at World Cup races. We have the Olympics but even then it’s not my whole family. So I really cherished that weekend.”
Vonn’s younger sister, Laura, lived in Florence then and the siblings met up annually in Cortina. Vonn’s mother, Lindy, died in 2022 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“It’s nice,” Vonn said of the 2015 race, “to be able to look back and remind myself of those memories.”
Tears, pain and retirement in 2019. And now back again
It hasn’t been just joy for Vonn in Cortina.
There were also tears when she struggled there in 2019, realizing that she would soon have to retire due to the pain in her knees and joints.
After getting a partial joint replacement in her right knee, Vonn returned to racing last season and now she’s heading back to Cortina aiming to add some new entries to her career record there — if her left knee allows it.
___
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Read the full article here