When Lindsey Vonn announced her return this past November, alpine racing fans were stunned. In 2024 Vonn turned 40 and also underwent a partial knee replacement. There is no precedent for a downhill ski racer to return to the World Cup circuit at that age, with an artificial joint. A comeback like Vonn’s is by and large unprecedented—in any professional sport.

But some of Vonn’s colleagues on the US Ski Team weren’t so surprised.

“When you’re an elite athlete at the level that Lindsey was, ski racing is just a part of your character, it’s in your blood,” Tom Kelly, a long-time spokesperson for the U.S. Ski Team who has known Vonn since she was a junior racer, told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “You get great satisfaction being in your competitive field, in her case, being out on snow. She didn’t want to retire when she did. She just couldn’t do it anymore. And now she can.”

Here’s what to know about Vonn’s comeback:

Why Did Lindsey Vonn Retire?

Vonn’s career on the ski racing World Cup circuit began in 2000. She excelled in the speed events: downhill and its more technical cousin, super-G. Over her 19-year professional career, she won more combined downhill and super-G races (71) than any other ski racer, male or female, in history.

Along the way, Vonn became American ski racing’s first celebrity to attain mainstream fame. She graced the cover of major magazines, was a guest on theÌęTonight Show,Ìęand yes, even dated golfer Tiger Woods.

But Vonn also suffered a litany of serious injuries throughout her career. One of the worst came during 2013 world championships in Schladming, Austria, when she crashed in the super-G and tore multiple ligaments in her knee and suffered a tibial plateau fracture. Although she would eventually recover, and go on win another 23 World Cups and an Olympic bronze medal, Vonn was never truly the same. She has said that she suffered regular knee pain after that injury.

On February 10, 2019, Vonn announced her retirement shortly after earning her eighth world championship medal, a bronze in downhill. She was “broken beyond repair,” she said at the time. She had hoped to catch Ingemar Stenmark’s record 86 World Cup wins—a mark since surpassed by Mikaela Shiffrin, who stands at 99—but ended her career with 82 wins.ÌęVonn has said she was devastated to miss the goal, but her body “was telling her to stop.”

Vonn said that she was unable to fully straighten her right leg for several years, which caused additional problems in her hip, back, and neck. “I ended on good terms—it wasn’t perfect but it was still my terms,” she recently .

How Did Vonn Return to Ski Racing?

Only a handful of elite athletes have returned to professional sports after undergoing a major joint replacement: Bo Jackson came back to baseball after undergoing a hip replacement in 1993, and tennis star Andy Murray did so after a hip resurfacing in 2019. But no one has done so in ski racing.

Last April, Vonn had a lateral uni-compartment knee arthroplasty —medical-speak for a partial knee replacement. Doctors removed a small section of bone and replaced it with titanium alloy.

Vonn had the operation to address the knee pain that nagged her in her daily life—not so that she could return to competition. “I’d go on a hike with my friend’s seven-year-old and Aunt Lindsey has to take a break after ten minutes,” she told NBC News.

But the operation exceeded even her wildest dreams. A few months later, Vonn returned to the gym. At first, she had to retrain her nervous system and musculature, which for years had compensated for pain.

“You have to retrain your body to say, ‘yes, I can bend my ankle or knee or hip the way I used to before I had this pain,’” explains Tyler White, a certified athletic trainer at iSport in Killington, Vermont, who has helped athletes return to skiing with joint replacements. “This neuro-patterning is time consuming. You have to be diligent and consistent.”

But Vonn said that after the surgery, she could do exercises and drills in the gym that she hadn’t been able to do in eight years. She played tennis and lifted weights without pain. Over the ensuing months, Vonn regained strength, and in August she traveled to New Zealand to try skiing. That’s when ski racing fans began to think that she might return to the sport.

“With this new knee that is now a part of me
 I feel like a whole new chapter of my life is unfolding before my eyes,” she posted on Instagram from New Zealand, concluding, “I don’t know exactly what lies ahead, but I know I’m healthy, happy and grateful.”

Shortly after her 40th birthday in October, Vonn traveled to Sölden, Austria, to do her first actual competition training. She felt good, and in November announced her plans to return. Just eight months after surgery, she skied down the women’s downhill and super-G courses at the Beaver Creek World Cup in Colorado—not racing, but at full speed. Her times would not count, but she would be racing full-length World Cup courses near race pace. Her finishing time would have placed her inside the top-20.

“The replacement went so well, and I have no pain and no swelling,” Vonn told reporters at Beaver Creek. “It feels so amazing to be back. I can’t tell you how big a difference it makes to be able to ski without pain. It’s a completely new world for me. I haven’t felt this good in 15 years.”

“It was the happiest I had seen her in years,” says Kelly.

Can Vonn’s New Knee Survive Ski Racing?

But are partial knee replacements designed for the forces imparted by ski racing?

“We don’t really know,” says Dr. Melbourne Boynton, long-time U.S. Ski Team physician, knee surgeon, and medical director of the Vermont Orthopaedic Clinic. “The number-one failure of partial knee replacements is caused by repeated impact.”

The success rate for uni-compartmental knee arthroplasty is good: 95.3 percent of people who get one are still using it after five years, and 91.3 percent at 10 years. Of course none of these individuals are World Cup-level downhill ski racers. During a Downhill race, Vonn may surpass 75 miles per hour, and at that speed her knees and joints absorb two-to-three times her body weight in G-forces. Downhill racers encounter bumpy, rutted ski runs, and they must also soar over rolling jumps and then land back on the snow at high speeds. Ski racers without artificial joints face serious injury when crashing at that velocity.

If Vonn’s implant does loosen, doctors can fix it, with either another partial or full knee replacement. And if the bone breaks around the implant, that is fixable too. But this level of injury would likely prevent Vonn—or any elite athlete—from returning to a high level of competition again.

After the Cortina races, Vonn was emphatic when asked if she can trust her knee.

“I don’t think about my knee at all,” she said. “It’s crazy. I used to think about it every day, when I woke up, when I went to bed. It was always there. Now my knee is the last thing on my mind, which I’m really thankful for.”

Can Vonn Win Again?

Vonn faces stiff competition in the speed events. Many of the younger racers she competed against later in her career are now in their thirties and are dominating the sport: Lara Gut-Behrami of Switzerland, and Federica BrignoneÌęand Sofia Goggia of Italy, to name a few.

Vonn’s body is not the same one she once had. She has been diligent in the gym, but there’s gym strong, and then there’s ski racing strong, and the latter takes months, if not years, to rebuild.

American skier Picabo Street, who won Olympic gold in the super-G in 1994, toldÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that Vonn is “Having to decide, A) how much risk to take, and B) whether or not she’s physically capable of charging down the course, and if her body is going to give her what she needs to be there.” These decisions can determine the margin between victory and defeat in a sport where hundredths of a second often determine final placings.

Vonn is also adjusting to new equipment. She used to race on extremely stiff and aggressive skis—she was strong enough to turn them. Although downhill skis and boots have not changed much in the past six years, Vonn’s strength is not the same. A representative from Head, Vonn’s ski sponsor, said she’s racing on a less-aggressive set-up this year.

It’s a lot to figure out. But, as Street points out, the logistical puzzle isÌępart of the fun for Vonn.

“She loves being challenged,” says Street, who skied with Vonn in Europe in January, “and she loves figuring out how to win a challenge, whether it be with herself, her equipment, or the rest of the girls on the World Cup.”

Another challenge Vonn faces is the order in which she starts each race. The highest ranked skiers get the earliest starts when the course is still relatively smooth. Vonn was once one of the first racers on course. But after her five-plus-year hiatus, she must start later in the day, after thirty or more skiers have torn up the course and left Vonn with a bumpy, rutted surface.

Before Christmas, Vonn entered her first World Cup race—a super-G in St. Moritz—wearing bib 31 (finishing a respectable 14th). In mid-January, she competed in a super-G in St. Anton, Austria, and finished fourth, winning the Bibbo Award, the prize given to the ski racer who makes the biggest jump from their bib number to their finish (27 places for Vonn).

By the end of January, Vonn was starting inside the top 30—but just barely. It will take more consistent top finishes in World Cup races until she gets inside the top ten. And crashing has not helped. She crashed in training in Cortina and again in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, downhill.

But Street sees these crashes as a good thing. “Having a crash and walking away from it, knowing you’re okay is very, very valuable,” she says. “It’s another rung of the ladder.”

Could Vonn Qualify for Her Fifth Olympics?

In Mid-December, after several World Cup races, Vonn told reporters that she did have a long-term goal: returning to the Olympics. The 2026 Games will be held in Cortina, Italy—a course Vonn adores.

But earning a spot on the U.S. Olympic ski team will be tough. Team USA will likely have four women’s spots for speed events at the Milano CortinaÌęOlympics, and officials will choose the team based on how many podium finishes World Cup races in 2025 and 2026. In Vonn’s absence, other American women have become competitive on the international stage: Lauren Macuga, who won St. Anton super-G this year, as well as Jacqueline Wiles and Breezy Johnson, who have made it to the World Cup podium in the past. Mikaela Shiffrin will likely aim to compete in the Olympic super-G as well.

Street thinks Vonn is on course to get back on the World Cup podium soon and also qualify for her fifth Olympics.

“She’s hungry to win again and does not love that she’s not,” Street says. “I’m going to go on the record and say it won’t be long now.”

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Glaciers shrinking in Europe are no secret, especially to ski racers.

Just eight years ago, U.S. speed skier Sam Morse remembers training on a glacier above Zermatt. When the training session ended, he skied on the glacier all the way down to the cable car’s mid-station and downloaded to town from there. Now, the glacier no longer reaches the mid-station. After a day of training, ski racers have to head back to the summit and download the full length of the cable car.

“In less than 10 years, the glaciers have receded a substantial amount, like probably almost a kilometer or two up the hillside, so you can’t ski out,” he described recently by phone from a training camp in Colorado.

Other U.S. skiers report similar observations. While training in Saas Fe in 2020, Morse’s teammate Erik Arvidsson remembers taking a lift above a bare slope. His coaches told him that they used to be able to train on this slope in July and August.

Earlier this fall, Mikaela Shiffrin adjusted her training plan to stay in South America longer than in previous seasons because training on Europe’s glaciers to prep for the Sölden World Cup is “really mostly rock at this point.”

Couple these observations with last year’s viral photos of excavators digging into Europe’s glaciers to make early-season World Cup race courses, and we have to wonder if ski racing is viable as climate change takes its toll. And worse, is it contributing to the problem?

Perhaps. But Morse and Arvidsson think the sport can lead the way in meaningful change.

First, the Bad News 


A slim minority of U.S. citizens believe that climate change is a hoax. But the facts are hard to deny. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has data showing that the ten warmest years since record-keeping began in 1850 have occurred in the past decade. And NOAA’s climate tools show that the planet will continue to warm rapidly.

In ski country, average daily temperatures in the early season (November) are already over two degrees higher than from 1950-2013—”a fairly significant increase,” said Chris Gloninger, a meteorologist and climate scientist for the Woods Hole Group in Massachusetts.

Interestingly, climatologists now consider December a fall month in New England, when the grass still grows and lawns need mowing. This is a monumental shift, added Gloninger.

Warmer air leads to warmer oceans that are slow to cool, and an ice-free Arctic sets up a wavy Jetstream over the Northern Hemisphere. These deep waves can plunge us into extremes, from a polar vortex to a prominent ridge that brings unseasonably warm temperatures north. The only good news is that warmer air masses can hold more moisture, so when it does snow, it can be a good dump.

But for how long?

NOAA’s climate projection tools predict that if we don’t drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, average daily temperatures by the end of the century could be eight to 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer than in the mid-20th century.

“The climate in Burlington, for example, will be more like it is in Poughkeepsie, New York, by 2060 and Washington, DC, by 2100,” said Gloninger, using data from Climate Central. This organization communicates climate change science, effects, and solutions to the public.

By 2100, the western ski cities of Denver and Salt Lake City will have climates similar to those in Mexico, though higher elevations in the mountains will remain cooler.

Europe is experiencing similar warming. A study by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service showed that the Alps’ glaciers have lost 10 percent of their volume in the past two years. It’s no surprise that climatologists predict the end of snow sports as we know them in a generation or two.

FIS’s Efforts

With the future of winter on the line, the International Ski Federation has started to act. Earlier this fall, FIS released its, “a roadmap to a more sustainable and inclusive snow sports ecosystem.” The climate change section of the program lists one strategic objective— to reduce the carbon footprint of FIS activities and events as much as possible, become climate neutral, and support concrete actions to combat or adapt to climate change—along with several promising sub-objectives (e.g., reduce FIS carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero by 2040).

To achieve these objectives, FIS is taking (or aims to take) several actions to complete 26 by the end of 2024 and release an Impact Report in 2025. One of their first initiatives was to gather data to calculate and estimate the . For events, participant travel contributes 88.9 percent of carbon emissions.

Using this data, FIS is now maximizing the use of renewable energy at its headquarters, making every other FIS Congress remote and allowing judges from some disciplines to work at home during races.

FIS is also looking at a modified events calendar to reduce travel—”a balancing act between growing snow sports, by bringing events to as many viable locations as possible, while minimizing the season’s carbon footprint,” FIS said in a statement. For the 2024/2025 season, alpine skiers will only travel to North America once during the regular season—for the Killington, Mont Tremblant, and Beaver Creek World Cups. Sun Valley is hosting the World Cup Finals in March. Still, only 25 men and women qualify to compete in each of alpine ski racing’s four disciplines, reducing by about half the number of people who have to travel back to the U.S. from Europe.

“ForÌę as much as most elite athletes are based in Europe, we are an international sport,” said FIS General Secretary Michel Vion. “If a venue in North America presents ideal conditions at the time when our Finals take place, we would be remiss not to consider it as a strong candidate to host the event.”

FIS is currently working on a plan to start the Alpine World Cup a week later. They also eliminated early-season World Cup downhills in Zermatt—what Arvidsson described as a thorn in both FIS’s and the athletes’ sides. The race was canceled for two consecutive years, and photos of excavators digging into the glacier to build the course were not a good look for ski racing.

“[That race] forced us to be ready to race over a month earlier than normal, which increased the amount of international travel that we had to do leading up to that race, which, from a climate and from a personal standpoint, didn’t really feel necessary,” explained Morse.

To further reduce ski racing’s carbon footprint, FIS has listed several tools and projects to implement as part of the impact program, some more vague than others. Two concrete projects: create a to support local organizing committees and national governing bodies, and create a sustainable car/travel policy for FIS activities. But as Morse pointed out, U.S. alpine skiers are already doing their best to reduce transportation emissions. The team flies commercially, not by private jet like pro athletes in other sports, and once on the ground, the team travels as a group—“packed into vans,” he said, “not in our own sportscars.”

FIS also partners with global organizations, like the World Meteorological Organization, to provide data and expertise about climate change and raise awareness.

Could FIS Do More?

The Impact Programme is a positive step toward reducing ski racing’s carbon emissions. But Arvidsson and Morse likely speak for many ski racers and snow sport athletes who want FIS to do more. Some of their ideas are low-hanging fruit, others more far-reaching.

Shortening the Alpine World Cup season would be one easy way to reduce team travel even more. In its first season (1967), the World Cup tour started in January and ended three months later in March. While the tour still concludes in March, the front end gradually crept into the fall months, first December, then into November. Currently, the season starts in late October with the Sölden giant slaloms.

The early-season World Cups are important for the ski industry, generating excitement and thus increasing equipment and ticket sales. But Arvidsson thinks it’s worth examining the trade-offs. Rather than traveling to the Southern Hemisphere in August and September to prep for the early-season races, skiers could wait to train closer to home later in the fall.

“I recognize that having those early races is important for the business side of things,” Arvidsson acknowledged, “but depending on how important [the business side is] deemed to be, moving the race season to start around Christmas-time would dramatically impact the travel that the national teams would do in the off season.”

Limiting the race season domestically, especially for younger ski racers, would also help reduce the sport’s carbon footprint and the financial burden on parents. This type of change starts from the top.

“One way that FIS could do that is by restricting the [junior] race schedule to be from January to March, and incentivizing clubs and youth programs to take advantage of when they have natural snow available to them within a more reasonable radius in November and December,” said Arvidsson.

“There’s no reason that kids from Vermont who are flying all the way out here to Colorado right now and training here with us need to be doing that,” added Morse.

Policy Changes

But reducing a few hundred ski racers’ airplane flights is a drop in the bucket against the firehose that is climate change. Facing the challenges of a warming world requires dramatic, systemic change on a policy level. And this is where Arvidsson and Morse would like FIS to step up. Ski racing—with its visibility on the global stage and very existence threatened by a lack of snow—could be the face of climate change. As one of the world’s largest sports governing bodies, FIS could unite with the outdoor industry to make a big impact, challenging fossil fuel businesses, and significant greenhouse gas emitters to make dramatic changes to reduce emissions.

“I would say that it’s time to end the finger-pointing and work together with FIS to demand that they become a leader in the climate change conversation,” stated Arvidsson. “The primary skiing and snow sports organization in the world has a responsibility to ensure their future in the next 50 to 100 years. They can form a really strong coalition that can have a dramatic impact on policy levels in Europe, in North America, around the entire world.”

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Mikaela Shiffrin’s journey toward her 100th World Cup win took an unexpected turn on Saturday when a crash during the second run of the Killington giant slalom sidelined the ski racing legend. But while Shiffrin recovered off the slopes, the U.S. Ski Team delivered one of its strongest collective performances of the season, offering a glimmer of hope and momentum for American skiing.

Shiffrin was on the cusp of winning her 100th World Cup race when disaster struck.

The 29-year-old ski phenom lost her edge and crashed heavily in the Killington giant slalom. She somersaulted and hit two gates before abruptly stopping in the fencing. She asked ski patrol for a sled because she “was in shock, entirely unable to move and worried about internal organ trauma,” she said in a U.S. Ski Team statement. She went by ambulance to the local hospital for evaluation.

Doctors determined that she had had no damage to her ligaments, bones, or internal organs. She suffered a puncture wound to the right side of her abdomen and severe muscle trauma but did not get stitches for the wound “because it’s too deep and there’s risk of infection,” Shiffrin said in the statement.

“She is pretty sore. Her return to snow is TBD (to be determined) and more information will be forthcoming,” stated the U.S. Ski Team.

Having difficulty walking, Shiffrin skipped Sunday’s slalom and instead cheered for her teammates from her lodging in Killington.

Paula Moltzan and Nina O’Brien both scored career bests, with fifth and sixth, respectively, in the GS on Saturday. And 19-year-old Elizabeth Bocock—in eighth after the first run—collected her first World Cup points by finishing 23rd. Katie Hensien also had a good race, climbing from 21st after the first run to 13th.

How the Day Unfolded

On a cold, blustery day, the usual raucous Killington crowd was waiting to see what could be Shiffrin’s 100th win. She skied the first run so flawlessly that it looked like nothing would stop her. With a rare combination of strength, balance, endurance, smarts, and touch for the snow, Shiffrin has rarely DNFed—ski racing lingo for did not finish. In 274 World Cup starts across 13 seasons, she had only DNFed 18 times.

The last time she didn’t finish in a GS? Seven years ago.

So when she came onto Superstar’s steep final pitch on her second run and leaned in, losing her edge and somersaulting into the next gate, the crowd gasped, then sat silently as ski patrol converged on a downed Shiffrin. The crowd cheered as they brought her down in a sled, and Shiffrin raised a hand to wave. (For on-demand access,Ìę subscribers ($89.99/year) can watch these races anytime.)

A Home Snow Win

Shiffrin came to Killington hoping to reach the 100-win milestone on home snow. She spent a formative part of her childhood training just 38.4 miles from Killington—at Storrs Hill in New Hampshire. As an 8-year-old, Shiffrin and her older brother Taylor ate SpaghettiOs in the car after school, then trained under the lights. From there, she enrolled at Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. The crowd was filled with many who knew her, and the Killington Cup was a race she loves.

“I love being here,” she said the night before the GS. “I love the crowd. I love the people. I love how gritty and determined everybody is to pull off the best World Cup race possible and how supportive everybody is. It’s so raw and real and New England.”

She had specifically targeted the Killington GS this year. She wanted to execute her best skiing on this hill, which had bedeviled her in previous races. In six previous Killington Cup GSs, she finished on the podium only three times. Without going into technical details, she called the hill “a nuisance in GS.”

But on the first run of GS, it looked like she had mastered the nuisance. Only Olympic GS champ Sara Hector was within a half-second of her.

Since partnering with the Share Winter Foundation earlier this year, Shiffrin has been skiing for something greater than herself, and the records finally mean something. She has shifted her perspective and sees the record/milestone conversation as an opportunity to bring more attention to the sport—and thus more money to an organization that aims to get more kids on snow.

Now, the 100th World Cup win is indefinitely postponed. Shiffrin still has a chance to celebrate the milestone win on home snow—at Beaver Creek, Colorado, near where she also spent much of her childhood and now owns a home. The women’s World Cup heads to Beaver Creek, Colorado, for speed races on December 14-15. Shiffrin plans to race the super-G on Sunday, Dec. 15. But that race is only two weeks away. Will Shiffrin recover by then?

Tremblant World Cup Canceled

In more ski-racing news: next weekend’s Tremblant World Cup was canceled. While Killington received 21 inches of snow on Thanksgiving Day, Tremblant was not as lucky. Due to a lack of snow, race organizers were forced to cancel the two women’s World Cup giant slaloms. The races were slated for next weekend, Dec. 7-8. 2024.

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Lindsey Vonn, the legendary ski racer with 2.4 million Instagram followers, has been dropping hints that have fans buzzing: Could a return to World Cup racing be in the works?

“It’s been an incredible past few weeks,” she posted recently. “Being back in the mountains is where I find so much joy. It’s my natural habitat
even if I hate being cold lol.”

Then she added, “Excited to share more .”

The ski legend, who turns 40 on Friday, had a knee replacement last spring and can finally live without ever-present pain. In a recent post from the gym, she shared, “Leveled up this summer and it’s paying off
 can’t wait to get back to my happy place on the mountain.”

With posts like these, Vonn has sparked rumors. Is she planning a return to World Cup racing? Like Marcel Hirscher, Vonn could apply for a World Cup “Wild Card” spot. (Hirscher, 35, holds a record eight overall World Cup titles and retired in 2019.)

Why Lindsey Vonn Might Return to World Cup Ski Racing

According to FIS’s rulebook, a wild card can be granted to athletes who have won either a World Cup overall globe, an event globe (under the condition of a minimum of five World Cup victories), or an individual Olympic or world championship gold medal. Vonn certainly meets all those qualifications. Additionally, the wild card rule states, “The athlete who requests a Wild Card must be retired from the World Cup Tour for two or more years (Official FIS Retirement form and WADA date record), but not more than ten years.”

Once again, Vonn checks all the boxes.

Her team will only confirm that she “underwent a partial knee replacement in April. She has been recovering well since then and her knee feels incredible. She was cleared to ski and has begun a return to skiing progression.”

But is Vonn truly considering a World Cup return?

Vonn’s Knee: A Game Changer?

Before we dive into the possibility of a comeback, it’s essential to understand how Vonn’s knee surgery has transformed her ability to ski pain-free. Bedeviled by crashes and injuries during her 19-year-long World Cup career, Vonn’s knees took the brunt of the damage. She had “severe tri-compartment degeneration” in her right knee, with the lateral compartment causing the most pain. In July 2023, she had surgery in an attempt to hold off knee replacement.

“But I got to the point where it was too much, and my knee could not handle doing the things I love to do,” she wrote on Instagram on April 9, 2024, the day of her knee replacement surgery.

Vonn soon rehabbed her new knee and was back in the gym, ramping up her workouts. This fall, she was back on snow, skiing in New Zealand.

Why a Comeback Might Appeal to Vonn

Vonn retired from ski racing after the 2019 world championships, not because she wanted to, but because she was constantly in pain.

“It’s been an emotional two weeks making the hardest decision of my life, but I have accepted that I cannot continue ski racing,” she posted on Instagram at the time.

She wasn’t upset about retiring, but what troubled her was not reaching her goal of equaling or surpassing Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 World Cup wins.

“However, I can look back at 82 World Cup wins, 20 World Cup titles, 3 Olympic medals, 7 World Championship medals and say that I have accomplished something that no other woman in HISTORY has ever done, and that is something that I will be proud of FOREVER!” she added in the same Instagram post.

Since then, Mikaela Shiffrin has raised the World Cup win record to 97 (and counting). While Vonn would be hard-pressed to catch Shiffrin, returning to the World Cup to retire on her terms would give Vonn some closure.

Even more enticing, the women finally get to race a World Cup downhill and super-G on Beaver Creek’s Birds of Prey course—where Vonn won bronze in super-G at the 2015 world championships. And next winter, Cortina is hosting the women’s alpine events at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games. Vonn scored her first World Cup podium on Cortina’s Tofana downhill course and broke the women’s World Cup win record there in 2017. Over her career, Vonn won 12 downhills and super-G races at Cortina.

As Vonn wrote in her book Rise, she has always been motivated by doubters. A return to World Cup racing would not be a complete surprise.

Is Lindsey Vonn Just Enjoying Skiing Without Pain?

Or is it more likely that Vonn is simply happy to be back enjoying the slopes without pain in her knee?

If we closely follow her Instagram posts from the summer, Vonn is thrilled to be leading the active lifestyle that she has always dreamed about—playing tennis, riding her bike, and even surf foiling without debilitating pain. And in late August, she announced that she would be skiing with guests at the private Three Forks Ranch resort in Wyoming for two weeks in late February and early March—not exactly the kind of commitment someone would make if the World Cup tour were on her radar.

Earlier this week, Vonn posted from New Zealand: “With this new knee that is now a part of me
 I feel like a whole new chapter of my life is unfolding before my eyes. My adventurous spirit feels full of gratitude. To do the things you love to do is truly a blessing and I don’t take it for granted.”

While we may be reading too much into her posts, she concluded, “I don’t know exactly what lies ahead, but I know I’m healthy, happy, and grateful.”

The Verdict

Though Vonn certainly has the credentials to qualify for a World Cup wild card, returning to the circuit after five years would present significant challenges. Not only would she face competition from younger racers, but regaining top-level fitness after multiple knee surgeries could be a hurdle. Still, if anyone has the determination and grit to do it, it’s Lindsey Vonn.

What do you think? Could Lindsey Vonn be gearing up for one last World Cup race? Stay tuned for more updates from SKI.

The post Is Lindsey Vonn Planning a World Cup Comeback? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

This past April, International Olympic Committee member Karl Stoss was in Salt Lake City on a final visit with committee. As he was leaving, Stoss, who chairs the IOC’s Future Host Commission, stopped at an airport help desk to inquire about his departure gate. An enthusiastic airport employee noticed he was with the Olympic movement and gushed, “Bring the Olympics back to Utah!”

And indeed, he did. During the IOC’s 142nd session on July 24 in Paris, Stoss and his fellow IOC members voted to approve Salt Lake City-Utah as host of the XXVII Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Games 2034.

It will be the second time the Utah capital has hosted the Winter Games in the 21st century—and the fifth time the U.S. has hosted a Winter Olympiad. SLC hosted the 2002 Games, joining Lake Placid (1932 and 1980) and Squaw Valley, now Palisades Tahoe (1960), as U.S. hosts of the Winter Olympic Games.

“This is a great day for winter sport in the United States and around the world,” said Gene Sykes, USOPC Chair, who was part of the bid committee’s presentation in Paris. “The Games vision brought forth by the Salt Lake team—inclusive of state and city leaders, the remarkable bid team, and the community that showed support for this effort throughout—has been collaborative and forward-looking from the very start. We are thankful to the IOC and to Karl Stoss, who led the Future Host Commission, and we look forward to the process of organizing what we know will be a terrific Games in 2034.”

The bid’s major selling point was its popularity (80 percent of Utah residents and 100 percent of the state’s politicians supported the Olympics’ return). All competition venues already exist and have regularly hosted international competitions for the past 22 years. Major upgrades to Salt Lake City International Airport—including a brand-new terminal—also factored in. It is also a chance to extend the legacy that started with the 2002 Winter Games. That legacy includes youth sports programs helping to grow winter sports and producing Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, including Paralympian Dani Aravich, who is heavily involved with SLC-Utah 2034.

“Even though I grew up with a physical disability, I did not know much about the Paralympics, but everything changed when I began meeting people involved in the 2002 Games,” said Idaho-born Aravich, who competed in track at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games and in cross-country skiing at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. “Their passion to be in the Olympics and the Paralympics inspired me to pursue a new dream full force.”

The community programming tasked with invigorating ourÌę younger generations to pursue winter sports sits in the hands of SLC-Utah 2034 president and CEO Fraser Bullock, who was also the chief operating officer and CFO for Salt Lake City’s 2002 Olympic Winter Games. A planned $260 million legacy budget tied to the 2034 Games will continue support for community sports programs in Utah.

The 2002 Olympic legacy has helped more than just local Utahans, though. Athletes from over 30 countries regularly train at the competition venues built for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.

“Did it surprise you to learn that athletes from over 30 nations feature in our venues?” Catherine Raney-Norman, board chair of SLC-Utah 2034, posed at the IOC session. “Perhaps some of these athletes are from your countries. We have welcomed them as they help to raise the bar of competitive excellence in sport.”

IOC members lauded SLC-Utah 2034’s compact venue plan. The 13 competition venues are all within an hour of the single Athlete Village, which will be located at the University of Utah. They were also enthusiastic about SLC-Utah 2034’s plan to help athlete families attend the Games.

“We will share access to tickets and transportation accommodations at a fair cost,” said Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, heading up SLC 2034’s Olympic family planning. “We will create one or more villages for athletes’ families, including one right next to our Olympic and Paralympic Village.” This will be a first for any Olympic games, she noted.

With the IOC approving the 2034 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games a decade in advance, the economic boon to the region could be significant. An economic study estimates that the Games will bring $6.6 billion to the region over the next ten years, while the Games are predicted to cost $2.83 billion.

Utah Ski Resorts Return as Ski and Snowboard Venues

Ski resorts that will host 2034 Olympic events are the same as in 2002. While no developments at the resorts are directly related to the 2034 Games, SLC mayor Erin Mendenhall acknowledged that the city will undoubtedly look different a decade from now.

“I am so confident in who we are as a city and as a state ready to welcome the globe back,” Mendenhall . “We keep saying we could host the games right now, but the exciting part is we get 10 years. Not to build facilities, necessarily, but to build our community (and) to help our kids imagine themselves on that podium 
 It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity.”

Once again, Deer Valley will host freestyle aerials and moguls; Snowbasin will have all of the alpine and para alpine skiing events); and Park City Resort will be home to the freestyle skiing and snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle.

Snowboard parallel racing, skier cross, and snowboardcross will be held at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City.

Anti-Doping Drama Rears Its Head

Today’s announcement wasn’t without a bit of drama. While SLC-Utah 2034’s bid seemed a slam dunk, given that no other city or region bid on the Games and the IOC showed support from the start, a potential roadblock emerged earlier this month.

Several IOC members about 23 Chinese swimmers who were accused of doping before the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. WADA found the swimmers were exposed to the drugs through their food and were not at fault. However, the U.S. case, brought under the , demands more investigation into the event and has been perceived as challenging WADA’s authority.

To calm everyone’s nerves, Salt Lake City-Utah 2034 and USOPC chairman Gene Sykes confirmed in their presentation that both organizations are fully committed to compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code and that their dedication to clean sport and to the coordinated international anti-doping effort led by WADA is absolute.

To ensure that Olympic host cities comply with the World Anti-Doping Code, the IOC amended the host city contract, reinforcing the language to protect the integrity of the anti-doping system and allow the IOC to terminate the Olympic Host Contract in cases where “the supreme authority of the World Anti-Doping Agency in the fight against doping is not fully respected or if the application of the World Anti-Doping Code is hindered or undermined,” read IOC member John Coates, Chair of the IOC’s legal affairs commission.

The State of Utah and the USOPC have fully supported this measure.

“I praise U.S. leadership for wanting to clean up sport,” said Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who is in Paris with the bid committee this week. “And I also praise the IOC and WADA leadership for wanting to clean up sport. They want the same things, and that’s critical.”

Out of 89 valid votes, IOC members cast 83 ‘yes’ votes for Salt Lake City-Utah 2034, 6 ‘no’ votes, and 6 abstentions.

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Over the past 13 seasons, Mikaela Shiffrin has broken more records than we can easily count.

Most World Cup wins? Check. Eighty-eight and counting.

Most wins in one discipline? Yup, 53 in slalom so far. No doubt more to come.

Most wins in a single season? You got it. Seventeen during winter 2018–19.

Most prize money won in a single season? Yes, last winter: 964,200 Swiss francs (just over $1 million) and 23,000 CHF more than men’s overall World Cup champion Marco Odermatt pocketed last year.

Shiffrin has always said she’s not after records; she wants to ski well. And when she does break them, she prefers the word “reset” so as not to diminish the achievements of those who skied before her. But for the stats counters, here’s a list of records that Shiffrin can reset in the coming years.

Most Overall World Cup Titles

Two Austrian legends hold the record for most World Cup titles: Marcel Hirscher won eight, Annemarie Moser-Pröll has six. To date, Shiffrin has won five big crystal globes, given to overall World Cup winners, and is gunning for another this year.

“That’s always been one of my biggest goals, season titles,” she said in a pre-Sölden press conference last month.

A sixth overall title would tie Shiffrin with Moser-Pröll, whom Shiffrin met several years ago.

“She said something to me, like, ‘You just go for it, and you’re going to pass me,’” remembered Shiffrin. “It was just pretty striking to me that her mind was already there at a time when nobody else’s was.”

“She’s a complete trailblazer in in ski racing,” added Shiffrin, “and I would say that if I am able to match six overalls, I would consider that to be the biggest accomplishment.”

Shiffrin is a solid favorite to win her sixth overall World Cup trophy this year. As for tying Hirscher with eight, stay tuned.

Most World Cup Discipline Titles

For half of her 19-year-long World Cup career, Lindsey Vonn dominated the downhill rankings, collecting eight World Cup downhill titles from 2008 to 2016—the most discipline titles of any skier. Together with five in super-G and three in combined, Vonn has 16 smaller crystal globes in her trophy cabinet—tying her with Ingemar Stenmark for most.

Shiffrin has been similarly dominant in slalom and in the past decade, has claimed seven World Cup titles in the discipline. She’s a favorite to win one more this season, which would bring her even with Vonn for most World Cup titles in one discipline.

But catching Vonn’s and Stenmark’s total of 16 across multiple disciplines could be a stretch. With two giant slalom titles, plus one in super-G, Shiffrin currently sits at ten.

Most World Cup Points

In 2013, Tina Maze collected a record 2,414 World Cup points—1,313 more than her nearest competitor. That winter, the Slovenian competed in 35 World Cups across six disciplines and finished in the top 10 in 32 of them (also a record). Calling her point total “incredible,” Maze had not set out that winter to hit the mark; she just wanted to win her first overall World Cup title. Which, of course, she did.

Last season, Shiffrin tallied 2,206 World Cup points on her way to her fifth overall title (breaking her previous highwater mark of 2,204 points set in 2019).

Shiffrin, though, has always aimed for quality over quantity. So don’t look for her to reset Maze’s record.

Most World Cup Podiums

Shiffrin may have reset Stenmark’s World Cup win record from 86 to 88 last season. But the legendary Swede still holds the record for the most World Cup podium finishes: 155. Shiffrin stands at 138, seventeen shy of Stenmark. Shiffrin finished on the podium in 18 World Cups last season, so she stands a good chance of resetting another Stenmark mark this year.

Most World Championship Medals

Christl Cranz dominated women’s ski racing in the 1930s, winning 15 world championship medals from 1934 to 1939—the most won by any skier (male or female). Back then, alpine skiers only competed in slalom, downhill, and combined. But world championships were held annually, not biannually as they have been since World War II.ÌęShiffrin has 14 world championship medals in her collection — just one shy of Cranz. Chances are the American will tie and possibly break Cranz’s record at the 2025 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, slated to be held in Saalbach, Austria.

Most World Championship Wins

Of Cranz’s 15 world championship medals, 12 were gold—again, more than any other alpine skier. So far, Shiffrin has seven world championship gold medals. Can she win five or six more? It depends on when the 28-year-old decides to retire.

Most Olympic Medals

Topping the list with the most Olympic medals, Norway’s Kjetil AndrĂ© Aamodt won eight between the 1992 and 2006 Olympic Winter Games: four gold, two silver, and two bronze.

On the women’s side, Croatia’s Janica Kostelić and Anja PĂ€rson won six each in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Kostelić won three golds at the 2002 Olympics and a fourth in 2006; her other two medals are silvers. PĂ€rson only has one gold—from the Olympic slalom in 2006—one silver medal and four bronze.

Bode Miller holds the American record: six Olympic medals. For the women, Julia Mancuso has four.

To date, Shiffrin has won three Olympic medals: two gold (2014 and 2018 Games) and a silver (2018). The 2022 Beijing Games were a struggle for the American. But who’s to say she won’t win a handful more at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Cortina? It’s a ski resort that has treated her well. At the 2021 world championships in Cortina, she won four medals, including a gold in combined.

At the 2026 Olympics, the combined will be a team event, with one woman skiing the downhill or super-G leg and another competing in slalom. This new format could be fun; who doesn’t like a team event? Of the women currently on the U.S. Ski Team, Shiffrin and Jackie Wiles—the 31-year-old is back from surgery in spring 2022—are the only ones to have finished on the downhill or super-G podium in Cortina.

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On February 19, 1989, Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark won his 86th World Cup race—a giant slalom in Aspen, fewer than 100 miles from Edwards, Colorado, the hometown of American skier Mikaela Shiffrin. Thirty-four years later, in a strange twist of ski-racing serendipity, Mikaela Shiffrin surpassed Stenmark’s World Cup win record in Åre, Sweden—Stenmark’s home country.

Displaying her unshakeable balance, Shiffrin won her 87th World Cup race, a slalom at the Åre World Cup on Saturday, March 11. Fittingly, it was one of her best slalom performances ever, with a winning margin of almost a full second (0.92) over Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener.Ìę

“It’s pretty hard to comprehend,” Shiffrin told TV viewers immediately after the race and shortly after hugging her brother Taylor during the podium celebration. “My brother and sister-in-law are here, and I didn’t know they were coming, so that makes it super special.”

Shiffrin’s ski racing talent is rooted in her upbringing, in part, trying to keep up with older brother Taylor on the slopes. She both cried and laughed at his surprise visit in Åre and said she could not wait to celebrate her record-breaking day with Taylor, his wife Kristi, and her mom.Ìę

“I can’t put a name with the numbers,” Shiffrin said later. “I don’t know how to define that. When you have these special moments, like being on the podium with Paula Moltzan in Semmering, seeing my brother and Kristi and my mom in the finish today—that’s what makes it memorable. I’m so proud of the skiing I did both runs today and so proud of the team this whole season. Every step of the way, being strong and focused and positive and having the right goals and helping me manage my own focus and distractions. It’s been incredible to be part of that. I’m just really thankful.”

Watch: Shiffrin’s journey to victory #87

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It was Shiffrin’s 13th World Cup win this season and 53rd World Cup slalom victory (six of which came this season). It’s the second most races she has won in a single season (she won 17 races in 2019), with three more World Cups on her calendar next week.

The winning stats do not end there. Shiffrin also clinched her second World Cup giant slalom overall title on Friday—an accomplishment that made her even happier than winning the GS race itself. She learned that she had won the title before she skied her second run of GS.

“If you asked me in the start gate, ‘Would you prefer to get this victory or to win the [giant slalom] globe, you get one, but you don’t get both, what would you choose?,’ I would choose the globe,” Shiffrin said. “Then I was like, ‘Okay, got that already, now I can push a little bit.’”

“Then you come into the finish like, ‘I can’t believe that all of that happened today,’ it’s a little too much to comprehend,” she added

The GS globe, she added, is a symbol of consistency throughout a season—something she covets more than single race wins.

With her 20th giant slalom win, Shiffrin tied Vreni Schneider’s women’s GS-win record—a record that had stood for 30 years. Shiffrin has won six giant slaloms this season, tying Schneider’s best season (six GS wins in 1989, the same year she won 14 World Cups—a record that Shiffrin smashed in 2019 with 17 World Cup wins). Shiffrin has one GS left on her schedule at World Cup Finals next week.

But the world wasn’t comparing Shiffrin to Schneider—they were stacking her up against Stenmark. It took Stenmark just over 14 seasons to win 86 World Cups; Shiffrin just over ten. Shiffrin hit the mark at age 27, while Stenmark was 32. Shiffrin’s 87 wins have come in every alpine discipline; Stenmark’s in just two: slalom and GS.

Shiffrin has won 53 World Cup slaloms, 20 GS races, five super-G events, three downhills, one alpine combined, and five parallel races to get to 87. Stenmark won 46 slaloms and 40 giant slaloms.

Of note: throughout most of Stenmark’s career, super-G was not yet a discipline, and there were fewer World Cups on the schedule. For example, in 1979 (the year Stenmark won his most World Cup races), there were 33 men’s World Cup events, 13 of which were downhills or combined races—meaning Stenmark competed in 20 World Cups (he won 13).

By comparison, in 2019—the season Shiffrin won a record 17 World Cup races—there were 35 women’s World Cups, with Shiffrin competing in 26 of them across five disciplines.

“She’s much better than I was, you cannot compare,” Stenmark told the Associated Press in February. “She has everything. She has good physical strength, she has good technique, a strong head. I think it’s the combination of everything that makes her so good.”

“And I’m also impressed that she can ski good in slalom and in super-G and downhill also,” he added. “I could never have been so good in all disciplines.”

But Shiffrin would take nothing away from the Stenmark.

“No matter what I do, if I achieve 86 or 87, or whatever number I achieve, it doesn’t change anything about what Stenmark accomplished,” she explained after tying Stenmark’s record. “It’s a really, really cool number. It’s wild, but for me, consistency and progression throughout the season has always been my biggest goal.”

Stenmark was not in Åre to watch the World Cup races. He did not want to take the attention away from Swedish skiers, four of whom made the flip in this weekend’s slalom and GS, with Olympic champion Sara Hector landing on the podium in third in Friday’s GS and Anna Svenn Larsson taking third in slalom on Saturday.Ìę

In a TV interview after the GS, Shiffrin was invited to say something to Stenmark who was watching from afar.

“No matter what I do, it doesn’t ever compare to what you achieved,” she said. “Maybe I get the 87th victory. Maybe not. But for me the biggest dream is to be mentioned in the same sentence as you.”

“Who you are and who you already were as a ski racer and what you achieved as a human, that’s been the most inspiring thing,” she added.

Beyond her affiliation with Stenmark and his homeland, the fact that Shiffrin tied the World Cup win record in Åre also holds meaning. It was the site of her first World Cup win back in December 2012. It was also the site of her first, and so far only, major injury—when she hurt her knee back in 2016 and missed a couple of months of World Cup racing. And in 2020, Shiffrin was slated to race in Åre, her first race back after her father tragically died, until the pandemic shut down the world.

Shiffrin does not believe in destiny, but she does believe in “some level of karma or some kind of forces beyond our control that sway how things happen.”

“For whatever reason, it seemed destined to get at 86 here in Sweden,” she said after she had had time to process her GS win. “I’ve really experienced it all and felt it all in Åre, and for this to happen today, here, it feels somehow like that karma sway has been involved a little bit.”

While all eyes were on Shiffrin, the light also shown on her U.S. teammates. In slalom, finished just off the podium in fourth—. She accomplished this feat only a few weeks after having surgery on her left hand.

ÌęMoltzan broke her hand a month ago when the U.S. won the world title in the team parallel event. She returned to the U.S., had surgery in Vail, Colorado, and returned to racing with three plates and 25 screws in her hand. She only had one day of slalom training before the races in Åre.

ÌęWith a 15th place finish in GS on Friday, moved up high enough in the rankings to qualify for World Cup Finals—just over a year after her devastating crash in Beijing.

World Cup Finals begin on Wednesday in Soldeu, Andorra, with men’s and women’s downhill. Shiffrin is planning on racing the super-G on Thursday, then GS, and slalom next weekend. She already has the sewn up, so Finals will be a celebration of sorts of her historic season.

This article was first published by Ìę

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If the FIS Alpine World Cup were a baseball player, it would be batting 0.125.

On Monday, FIS announced the cancellation of the Lech/ZĂŒrs World Cup parallel event scheduled for Nov. 12-13. It’s the latest casualty of the 2023 World Cup season that’s not off to a great start due to high temperatures and a lack of snow in the Alps.

Due to the fact that the cold weather during the last days were unfortunately to late and the still unfavorable forecast, Lech-ZĂŒrs woman’s and men’s parallel events are cancelled.

— FIS Alpine (@fisalpine)

Of eight races on the schedule to date, all but one—the men’s giant slalom in Sölden, Austria on Oct. 23—has been canceled due to warm conditions and a lack of snow. Rain, snow, and poor visibility led to FIS , and warm temps in Europe nixed both the men’s and women’s downhills in Zermatt-Cervinia, Switzerland.

That event, held at 12,000 feet at the base of the iconic Matterhorn, was supposed to be the new flagship race of the World Cup season.

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The cancelations have left some questioning if FIS should push the start of the alpine World Cup to later in the season. After the cancelation of the Zermatt race, FIS race director Markus Waldner said the organization would discuss the future of holding World Cup events in October and November.

“We absolutely need to review the dates because we need to have more guarantee,”Ìę Waldner said. “We have to observe the nature. We have this climate change, we had a very extremely warm summer, extremely warm autumn, also. These are signals and we need to respect this.”

Indeed, record high temperatures over the summer melted glaciers across the Alps, with Switzerland losing approximately 6 percent of its total glacier volume.

The next scheduled World Cups are two women’s slalom races in Levi, Finland, a village so far north that the . The U.S. women’s team has been training in Levi for the past two weeks, and the race—at least right now—is a go.

Next on the schedule for the men is a downhill and two super-Gs in , Alberta, where it started dumping snow on Oct. 28. The Canadian resort opened Nov. 4 and already has a close-to-two-foot base near the summit. (It’s enough to make those of us in the balmy East want to jump on a plane.)

As for the , the situation looked grim in early November when temps hit record highs, and the resort announced continued operation of its bike park.

But do not underestimate the mountain. Temps dropped into the 20s on Nov. 8, and mountain ops began blasting Superstar (site of the Killington World Cup slalom and GS) with 120 snowmaking guns, spaced 18 feet apart (compared to the usual 50 feet). The team only needs about 100 hours of cold temps to adequately blanket Superstar.

FIS plans to do snow control for the on November 16.

“We are experts at dealing with what Mother Nature throws our way, and our snow making team has the full force of our arsenal aimed at Superstar,” says Killington president and general manager Mike Solimano in an email. “We are taking advantage of every bit of cold weather to cover the course with the necessary snow, and I’m confident we’ll be able to hold the race as scheduled. The long-term forecast looks promising with sustained cold temperatures starting on Sunday [November 13]. We’ve been in this position before, and Killington’s team always comes through.”

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