Lindsey Vonn
The Queen’s last great game
Lindsey Vonn is about to make Olympic history. The ski superstar is ready to make the impossible possible. To do this, she accepts sacrificing her knee.
1:29.63 minutes. That’s how long it takes to go from queen to goddess. With this time, Lindsey Vonn won her first World Cup victory in seven years in St. Moritz in December. And thereby made possible what many had thought impossible: the retiree returned to the top of the world. Her fabulous run stunned expert Felix Neureuther so much that he threw around superlatives and quickly elevated the speed queen to “goddess” status.
Vonn will also have to perform superhuman feats at the Olympic Games.
It wouldn’t be Lindsey Vonn if things didn’t get dramatic again shortly before perhaps the most important, but certainly most emotional race of her life. In the last race before the Winter Olympics, a week before the races for which she only came back, something that has happened many times before happened. She injured herself. But she’s willing to risk everything for one last chance at Olympic gold. Also her knee.
Unexpected return
When Vonn announced her comeback after almost six years, many people declared her crazy, tired of life and hungry for attention. She was recommended to see a psychiatrist. A return to the top of the world after such a long time, at this age, and with a partial knee prosthesis? Many thought this was completely out of the question. Not Vonn.
Vonn’s resignation in 2019 was a sensible decision. The body, battered by years of overexploitation, was worn out. Countless fractures, bruises, tears and nine operations on the knee alone took their toll. She left after a lackluster season marked by falls and tears. An ignoble end to a great career.
For a long time it looked as if it would stay that way. In her late 30s, the former speed queen was limping through her life. She couldn’t even go on short hikes because the pain was too great. A comeback was out of the question. It was only the decision to have another knee operation that changed everything. Two months after the procedure, she felt that it was possible to return. To where she never wanted to leave – on the racing track.
In her comeback race nine months later, she immediately came 14th. At the end of the season in Sun Valley, she was on the podium again for the first time. By then, she had silenced the last critics.
Cortina d’Ampezzo, the place of longing
Lindsey Vonn no longer has to prove anything to anyone. She has won almost everything there is to win. She dominated the World Cup for years and broke records. She won the overall World Cup four times and is world champion and Olympic champion. She was often accused of having a gold craze, an over-ambition that bordered on obsession. But Vonn is no longer where she was seven years ago.
Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup record, which she chased in vain for a long time, has long since been pulverized by the new ski superstar Mikalea Shiffrin and Vonn’s goals have shifted. These Olympic Games are probably her last opportunity to rewrite the end of her career – in Cortina d’Ampezzo, her dream place. On her favorite slope, where she has won so many times. She says she wouldn’t have come back to any other place. After the Winter Games she wants to finally end her skiing career. After the season at the latest, if she has a chance of winning a ball. she says.
Lindsey Vonn’s Mission Impossible
Wherever Lindsey Vonn is, there is drama – professionally and privately. The break with his father, the public War of the Roses with ex-husband Thomas Vonn, the falling out with Maria Riesch, the media-recognized desire to be allowed to compete among men. Lindsey Vonn is polarizing. She is said to love the big entrance and the attention. When she fell in the last race, just a week before the Winter Games in Crans-Montana, slipped to the finish line herself, but was then taken away by helicopter, some people suspected it was nothing more than a show before her big Olympic happy ending.
Olympic gold in Cortina d’Ampezzo would be this happy ending. Vonn has a long-standing friendship with this route. She competed there for the first time in 2002. Some of her competitors weren’t even born then. She won a total of twelve times on the track. She told The Times Magazine in October that she didn’t know how happy she would be if she didn’t win a medal there. But she doesn’t believe that will happen. She is in the form of her life. It was a clear declaration of war. Then came Crans-Montana.
The conditions have changed. Again it’s the knee that stands between you and success. But Vonn wouldn’t be Vonn if that stopped her now. She knew that her chances were no longer the same as before the crash, she announced at the press conference last Tuesday. “But as long as there’s a chance, I’ll try.”
The situation is not entirely new for Vonn. At the big tournaments, at the World Championships and the Olympic Games, there was almost always something going on. If she didn’t hurt herself shortly before, then she would during. Sometimes it was a concussion, sometimes a broken finger, often a knee. The diagnosis of a torn cruciate ligament once meant the end of participation in the Olympics in Sochi.
Can the Olympic Games despite a torn cruciate ligament be possible?
It’s a dangerous game. But Vonn knows exactly what she’s getting herself into. It’s not the first time she’s continued racing with an injured knee. She has already taken the risk of racing with a torn cruciate ligament twice. Once things went well for an entire season (2007/2008) and she even won the overall World Cup. Once only for two races, then it was broken. But that was the right knee. This time it’s about the actually “good” left knee – and the tear is very fresh.
In the past, a complete tear had always meant the end of the season for them. This time she doesn’t want to let the knee win. It is at least questionable whether Vonn’s muscles and the knee brace she wants to wear can cushion this. If she actually competes, she is taking an enormous risk and risking permanent damage to her knee. Knee expert Manuel Köhne told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that it was “a risky game like Russian roulette.”
Enormous forces are at work, especially on descents, where speeds of around 140 km/h can be reached. The knee load is many times the body weight. The anterior cruciate ligament plays an essential role in withstanding these forces. If it is torn, the knee loses stability. And every groove in the ground, every curve to be taken, every jump carries the risk of the knee buckling. Which in turn not only increases the risk of further knee injuries, but also the risk of falling in general.
Nevertheless, it is possible to ski at an elite level without a cruciate ligament. The Swiss Joanna Hählen rode for two years with a torn cruciate ligament without even knowing it. And the Austrian Daniel Hemetsberger finished seventh in the Olympic downhill in Bormio on Saturday. He is also missing his cruciate ligament.
On the way to the Vonn miracle
Lindsey Vonn’s decision may sound crazy, but it’s not surprising. She is known for always taking full risks. This brought her many successes, but also often brought her down. So far, she has always come back after setbacks – and the next time she took full risks again. No fall, no injury has ever changed that. Her therapist Armando Gonzalez told the Times Magazine that she had “a superhuman ability to distance herself from pain.” On Friday, in the last training session before the departure, she showed on the “Olimpia delle Tofane” racetrack that she was not yet defeated.
Before her final Olympics in South Korea in 2018, Vonn got a tattoo. Her finger now reads “Believe” in Greek script, a reminder to believe in yourself. Vonn believes in her miracle. As we all know, sometimes faith can move mountains – and maybe even make sports history. It wouldn’t be the first time that Vonn has made the seemingly impossible possible.
