The queen of downhill snowboarding is effectively and really again. At age 41, nonetheless sooner than the remaining.
Lindsey Vonn raced to a stunningly quick win in a World Cup downhill at St. Moritz on Friday to earn her first victory in almost eight years — and the primary in her comeback with titanium implants in her proper knee after a five-year retirement.
A number of main rivals, together with World Cup total winners Federica Brignone and Lara Intestine-Behrami, Olympic champion Corinne Suter and rising U.S. prospect Lauren Macuga didn’t race on Friday due to accidents.
Vonn seized the lead by an astonishing 1.16 seconds forward of Mirjam Puchner of Austria. Even wilder was that Vonn trailed by 0.61 after the primary two time checks on the Swiss resort.
The ski nice’s lead was later reduce to 0.98 — nonetheless an enormous margin in downhill — when unheralded Magdalena Egger took second place from teammate Puchner.
“It was an amazing day, I couldn’t be happier, pretty emotional,” Vonn advised Swiss broadcaster RTS. “I felt good this summer but I wasn’t sure how fast I was. I guess I know now how fast I am.”
Quickly after, Vonn shed tears on the rostrum within the end space when The Star-Spangled Banner performed.
It was an ideal begin to her Olympic season to get a primary victory since a downhill in March 2018 at Are, Sweden.
Vonn’s excellent debut working with new coach Aksel Lund Svindal, a males’s downhill nice who received the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics title, suggests their stellar partnership is paying off.
United States’ Lindsey Vonn celebrates on the end space of an alpine ski, ladies’s World Cup downhill in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Friday, Dec.12, 2025.
Luciano Bisi / AP
Her run Friday seemed routine when she dropped tenths of seconds to Puchner’s time on the highest half of the sunbathed Corviglia course, the place the end is at altitude above 6,500 ft.
Vonn then was sooner than anybody by way of the subsequent pace checks, touching 74 miles per hour, and posted the quickest time splits for the underside half.
She skied by way of the end space and bumped in opposition to the inflated security barrier, lay down within the snow and raised her arms on seeing her time. Vonn obtained up, punched the air along with her proper fist and shrieked with pleasure earlier than placing her fingers to her left cheek within the model of Steph Curry’s “Night, night” gesture.
Olympic targets
The 2010 Olympic champion is focusing on one other gold medal on the Milan Cortina Winter Video games in February. Ladies’s Alpine snowboarding is on the storied Cortina d’Ampezzo course within the Dolomites, which Vonn has mastered in her profession with 12 World Cup race wins.
“Obviously my goal is Cortina but if this is the way we start I think I’m in a good spot,” mentioned Vonn, who can be favored for an additional downhill win Saturday at St. Moritz.
Vonn advised CBS Sunday Morning earlier this yr that she “never thought” she could be speaking about going to the Olympics once more. Simply speaking about heading to Italy means she is “already winning,” she mentioned.
“I will be at a disadvantage,” Vonn mentioned. “I am 40, and at that time next year I will be 41. But I know my skiing is there. I think I’m actually skiing better now than I was last few years of my career.”
Vonn mentioned she has been welcomed — and teased — by youthful skiers on the U.S. group.
“There’s one girl that calls me Grandma, which I don’t exactly appreciate!” Vonn mentioned. “But there’s definitely some jokes around the team that, you know, I raced in my first Olympics before one of the girls was born.”
United States’ Lindsey Vonn speeds down the course throughout an alpine ski, ladies’s World Cup downhill in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Friday Dec. 12, 2025.
Gabriele Facciotti / AP
44 wins in 24 years
Friday’s race was Vonn’s a hundred and twenty fifth begin in World Cup downhill in her storied profession, 24 years after the primary at Lake Louise, Canada.
She has now received a record-extending 44 of them, together with at St. Moritz in 2012, and has 83 race victories throughout all World Cup disciplines.
Her earlier win at Are got here weeks after Vonn took bronze in downhill on the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Video games in South Korea received by Sofia Goggia, who positioned fourth Friday. That Olympics was Vonn’s fourth and the final she attended.
She additionally received gold in downhill on the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, and on the 2009 world championships at Val d’Isere, France.
Such is Vonn’s dominance in downhill, she has extra World Cup wins within the quickest self-discipline than the opposite 60 racers mixed who began Friday, the Worldwide Ski and Snowboard Federation mentioned.
A collection of great accidents this yr robbed Friday’s race of World Cup total winners Federica Brignone and Lara Intestine-Behrami, Olympic champion Corinne Suter and rising U.S. prospect Lauren Macuga.
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Michelle Gisin had surgical procedure on her again Thursday, after crashing laborious in a coaching run on the quickest a part of the St. Moritz course.
“I feel so sorry for Michelle, but that’s ski racing,” mentioned Vonn.
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