At the same time as she racked up robust finishes, Lindsey Vonn spent a lot of her unlikely comeback season a 12 months in the past saying she nonetheless wanted time to get used to her tools and get again in form for the grind of World Cup Alpine ski racing. There have been higher issues forward, she stated.
Nobody can doubt it now.
The American Alpine legend, at 41, grew to become the oldest lady to win a World Cup race, taking the highest spot Friday in St. Moritz, Switzerland, within the first downhill race of a season that’s constructing towards the 2026 Olympics. She then added a second-place end Saturday in one other downhill race.
Beginning seventeenth on Friday, Vonn opened slowly after which tore by means of the ultimate sections of the course, profitable in 1 minute, 29.63 seconds and turning hope into proof that she will contend for an additional Olympic medal earlier than she retires once more.
Two Austrians rounded out the rostrum. Magdalena Egger was the one skier inside a second of Vonn, 0.98 behind. Mirjam Puchner completed third, 1.16 seconds behind.
On a picturesque sunny day in St. Moritz, a lot of the prime early skiers posted comparable occasions. A bit of greater than a half-second separated first from seventh when Vonn stepped as much as the beginning gate, nearly one 12 months to the day since she made her return to World Cup snowboarding after greater than 5 years away, and on the identical slope.
Vonn obliterated all of them, ending greater than 1.1 seconds higher than the earlier racers. About midway down the mountain, she had shaken off that sluggish begin and was on tempo to guide, drawing audible gasps from the gang. When she crossed the end line, she slid to a cease towards the wall, fell to the snow and shrieked in pleasure.
“In my thoughts, I used to be pondering, ‘OK, nicely, I simply have to ski the pitch actually clear and carry my velocity down,’” Vonn stated of the run. “I nonetheless didn’t ski the perfect that I may’ve on the compression on the backside, however I attempted to be dynamic, tried to be clear, the way in which I’ve been snowboarding and coaching, and it was fairly stable.”
Vonn credited her offseason preparation, together with hiring new coach Aksel Lund Svindal, a 36-time World Cup winner throughout his racing profession.
“We labored actually onerous, not simply me however my complete workforce, from the tools to the bodily coaching, additionally employed Aksel,” she stated. “I knew I used to be snowboarding quick, however you by no means know till the primary race. I feel I used to be a little bit sooner than I anticipated. I feel I had an awesome run, however I additionally made some errors, so I’m excited for tomorrow.”
On Saturday, in a second downhill race, Vonn began eleventh and momentarily led once more earlier than Germany’s Emma Aicher handed her on the very subsequent run. These two occasions held at 1-2, giving Vonn her third straight World Cup podium.
The weekend closes out with a super-G race on Sunday. And Vonn is already fascinated by extra podium finishes.
“I’m truly actually excited for super-G,” she stated Friday, “as a result of I’m snowboarding higher in super-G than I’m in downhill.”
On Friday, most of the sport’s prime names had been trying up the leaderboard at Vonn. Italy’s Sofia Goggia, a 19-time World Cup downhill winner, completed fourth, 1.31 seconds again. The 22-year-old Aicher, who broke out final season with two World Cup wins, completed fifth. 9-time winner and 2024 downhill season champion Cornellia Hütter of Austria was sixth.
Breezy Johnson, who gained the downhill world title in February, was the second-best American finisher in fifteenth, with teammates Isabella Wright (sixteenth) and Jacqueline Wiles (18th) proper behind, all simply over two seconds off Vonn’s tempo.
It was the 83rd World Cup win — third all-time, males or girls — in a embellished profession that additionally consists of Olympic gold and eight world championship medals, and her first top-circuit victory since March 2018. American Mikaela Shiffrin has probably the most World Cup wins, with 104 and counting. Swedish nice Ingemar Stenmark is the lads’s all-time chief with 86.
Italian nice Federica Brignone — who’s recovering from harm and never racing this weekend — was the earlier oldest lady to win a World Cup race, a mark she reset a number of occasions final season with 10 race victories at age 34. Brignone was the downhill and general World Cup champion in 2024-25.
Lindsey Vonn snowboarding within the downhill Friday in St. Moritz, Switzerland. At 41, the American grew to become the oldest lady to win a World Cup race. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP by way of Getty Photos)
For Vonn, Friday was the primary race of what she’s stated can be her closing season following her unlikely comeback to the game final winter. Vonn retired in 2019 as mounting accidents took their toll, however a knee substitute in 2024 left her pain-free and planning a return to the game she left 5 years earlier because the winningest girls’s Alpine skier of all time.
She returned to competitors final December, snowboarding in a second-tier occasion in Colorado to earn the required factors to return to the World Cup circuit as a wild card. The Worldwide Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) — the game’s governing physique — gives retired skiers who’ve earned a minimal variety of factors whereas beforehand attaining sure benchmarks, corresponding to profitable Olympic or world championship gold medals, a quick observe again to World Cup racing.
Every week later, additionally in St. Moritz, Vonn skied her first top-circuit race since February 2019, ending 14th within the downhill.
In complete, she had 4 top-10 finishes in 13 World Cup races final season, capped by a second-place run within the super-G on the season-ending World Cup finals in Solar Valley, Idaho, in March — her first World Cup podium in seven years and the 138th of her profession. Now, it’s two consecutive podiums, together with a win, for Vonn.
As “The Star-Spangled Banner” performed whereas she stood atop the rostrum Friday, Vonn shed a number of tears, the second hitting her, then did the customary champagne spray with the opposite prime finishers. In lower than two months, on Feb. 8, the Alpine snowboarding competitors will start on the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics. Vonn has all of a sudden gone from a medal lengthy shot to one of many favorites.
Oh, and it’s in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, the place Vonn has gained 12 occasions on the World Cup tour — greater than anybody within the sport’s historical past.
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