Three-time Olympic medalist and four-time World Champion skier Lindsey Vonn is returning to skiing, five years after retiring following the 2018 Winter Olympics. Her decision was revealed in the New York Times on Thursday.
Vonn spent time this summer and fall training on the snow in New Zealand and Europe, and will rejoin the U.S. Ski and Snowboard team — starting this weekend for training in Colorado.
So what changed for Vonn? Why has she decided to come back when she never intended to? It’s all about her right knee, which had been severely damaged by accidents over years and years of skiing. She’d had multiple surgeries on it throughout her career and hadn’t been able to ski (or even walk) without pain for quite some time. That’s what led her to retire, but the pain continued.
In a effort to finally live a pain-free daily life, Vonn decided to have knee replacement surgery earlier this year. The results were staggering. One month after the surgery, Vonn told the Times she was able to straighten her right leg, which she hadn’t been able to do in a decade. Weeks later she was doing leg strengthening drills she hadn’t been able to do in eight years.
When she finally got back on her skis following surgery, her first casual runs went so well that she contacted her former coach. Just like that, they headed to New Zealand for training. Vonn began tackling the slopes like she hadn’t in years.
“I had been able to get stronger by then and could really start pushing my knee, and all that went really well,” Vonn said. “I was doing 15 runs. I haven’t done 15 runs in one day since my mid-20s.”
Will Vonn compete at the 2026 Olympics?
Nothing is sure for Vonn right now. She’s getting back into skiing and trying to keep her expectations low, but she is Lindsey Vonn. She made her World Cup debut at age 16 and has never been shy about how much she loves to race. With a pair of skis strapped to her feet and a pain-free right knee, she cannot be stopped.
“I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself because I have quite a few hoops to jump through,” Vonn said via the New York Times. “Obviously, I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t hope to be racing. I have aspirations. I love to go fast. How fast can I go? I don’t know.
“But I’m not going to put myself in a position to fail. My goal is to enjoy this, and hopefully that road takes me to World Cup races. I wouldn’t be back on the U.S. ski team if I didn’t have intentions.”
The 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics are 15 months away. She didn’t commit to anything right now, but Vonn couldn’t hide how excited she was at the possibility of returning to the Olympics and taking on one of her favorite courses.
“I’ve always enjoyed racing in Cortina and I’ve had a lot of success in Cortina,” she said. “I don’t know what the next few months and the next year and a half hold for me. So I can’t say right now if it’s a possibility.”
Vonn then paused and added, “But I think everyone knows how much I love Cortina.”
She might say “I don’t know” now, but Vonn knows not to bet against herself. If she’s at the top of Cortina in 15 months with her skis and goggles on, waiting for the buzzer that will send her speeding down another snowy hill, no one in the world should be surprised.