BEAVER CREEK, Colo. – Before skiers hit the course, they often receive course reports over the radio, detailing conditions, delivered by teammates at the finish who have skied the course before them.
It’s not every day that these messages come from Lindsey Vonn, three-time Olympic medalist, 82-time World Cup winner and one of the greats of alpine skiing.
But that did happen Saturday, when Vonn tackled the downhill course on Beaver Creek’s Birds of Prey World Cup course, testing the course for conditions and safety before some of the world’s best skiers took to the slopes — and reached out by radio with her American teammates to encourage them to do so. send it.
The sun was high, the course was fast and the atmosphere was festive as Vonn crossed the finish line in a dusting of snow, waving to the cheers of a packed crowd. As a precursor, her time was not released and did not count towards the official rankings, led by Cornelia Huetter from Austria with a time of 1:32.38.
“I’m so happy to be here again,” Vonn said in an interview with Birds of Prey commentator Parker Biele after completing the course.
She’s baaackkk 😏
From her super-G win in 2011 to taking on the historic women’s Birds of Prey descent, it only feels right that @lindseyvonn‘s comeback starts here.
She’ll do it again for tomorrow’s super-G 🤘#stifelusskiteam pic.twitter.com/aKZhRAAH0I
— US Ski and Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) December 14, 2024
The last time Vonn rode in a World Cup event was in 2019, not long before she retired due to years of injuries. But last month, Vonn announced a comeback to the world of alpine racing, attempting what few have done: returning to the sport’s top level, at age 40, after years of retirement.
Vonn raced at a lower-level event at Copper Mountain in Colorado earlier this month, where he secured the minimum number of points needed to apply for wild-card entry into World Cup races, reserved for retired skiers who have achieved success found at the top of the sport. After a run at Birds of Prey, she plans to return to the World Cup competition in St. Moritz, Switzerland, next weekend.
That will be more than twenty years since Vonn made her World Cup debut in 2000 at the age of 16. In the years that followed, she became one of the most successful women in alpine racing and developed a reputation for fast and powerful skiing. She often raced men’s skis and often asked to participate in men’s courses, but to no avail.
Things have changed since then. On Saturday, women rode the challenging Birds of Prey downhill track at Beaver Creek for the first time, which is usually reserved for men. The only other time women competed on the course was in 2011 on a version of the Super-G circuit, when a lack of snow in France moved the event just a year (women also raced on an adjacent course in Beaver in 2015 Creek). The winner of that 2011 race? Vonn.
“Birds of Prey is a hill that’s constantly pulling you down,” Vonn said Friday of her past experiences at Beaver Creek. “You can go extremely fast… if you let it guide you.”
It’s that past experience that Biele, himself a former racer who now commentates on the event, says is invaluable to fellow American women.
“What she can do is provide them with mentorship and really guide them,” Biele said. “She’s raced on all these hills before. So having someone who has done that, been on these tracks and had this experience is a valuable asset to give to the next generation of racers.”
Lindsey Vonn acknowledges the crowd Saturday after running the women’s downhill. She is targeting a return to World Cup racing next weekend. (Gabriele Facciotti/Agence Zoom/Getty Images)
Because Birds of Prey has historically been reserved for men, American women haven’t had as many opportunities to compete in World Championships on home soil.
“It’s so nice to get this opportunity to really take advantage of it, and to get in front of a home crowd, I mean in Europe there’s some American fans there, but to come down and have someone cheering for you is such a wonderful experience. nice feeling,” said Lauren Macuga, 22, who finished fourth with a time of 1:32.90, the fastest of the seven Americans racing Saturday and the only one to break the top 10. “It’s so exciting.”
More than two dozen family members and friends came out to support 2022 Olympian Bella Wright, handing out T-shirts to a largely American crowd — a rare event when many women’s World Cups are held abroad.
“I’ve been coming to Beaver Creek to watch the guys since I was four years old,” Wright said Friday before the racing started. “It means a lot to me to be here and it means even more that the women can follow the same course as the men. I think historically this will just be a moment that we look back on and realize that women can do more men’s tracks, which is so exciting.
It is also exciting for the locals. Kathi Kotula has lived in Vail Valley for 27 years and worked on the Birds of Prey event for 14 years. (She was looking forward to seeing local and alpine great Mikaela Shiffrin of Vail race the course, but Shiffrin is out with an injury after a crash last month during a World Cup race in Vermont.)
“We’re used to the grandeur of all the men coming into town and the excitement and fun, but I swear this year when they announced women were coming, there was a joy in the valley,” Kotula said. “We were so happy to have this opportunity.”
As Birds of Prey comes to a close and the World Cup circuit continues, attention now turns to how Vonn will perform in top-level races – and whether she could be competitive for the 2026 Olympics.
Her comeback at the age of 40 is unprecedented among female alpine skiers. When Vonn retired in 2019, she was already the oldest woman to medal in alpine skiing at the Olympics. In 2018, she won bronze in Pyeongchang at the age of 33. Earlier this year, Italian Federica Brignone, 34, became the oldest woman to win a World Cup race. (Brignone finished ninth in the descent on Saturday).
But Vonn joins a larger group of professional athletes competing into their 40s, including sports legends like Serena Williams and Tom Brady. In 2022, French skier Johan Clarey became the world’s oldest alpine racer medal at the Olympic Games at the age of 41.
Spectators cheer on Lindsey Vonn Saturday during the first women’s World Cup event, held at the famed Birds of Prey course in Beaver Creek. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images)
At Beaver Creek on Friday, Vonn also cited women younger than her who were pushing age boundaries in their respective sports — namely Simone Biles, who made her third Olympic team last summer at age 27. In Paris, Biles became the oldest Olympic women’s all-around competitor. gold medalist since 1952.
“I think Simone Biles is the perfect example of what can be done in old age, and she’s not even old yet. It’s just outside the boundaries of what we think is the right age for the sport,” Vonn said.
“I don’t think I’m reinventing the wheel, I’m just doing what I think is right for me, but at the same time continuing what other women have done before me.”
Vonn has cited several reasons for her comeback: she missed teammates, she missed skiing, she missed skiing fast.
But the main reason Vonn returned from retirement was simple: her body could do it.
“What changed my mind was that I was put back together,” Vonn said.
It’s an outcome that seemed far from guaranteed after years of high-speed crashes, painful injuries and surgeries, including a series of ligament tears in her knee in 2013 and 2014. She retired in 2019, not long after another ligament tear.
“I think the last few years of my career were a lot more challenging than I let on and everyone really understood,” Vonn said.
Eight months after knee replacement surgery and more than five years since her last race, Vonn said she feels better at 40 than she did at times earlier in her career.
“I couldn’t do a 10-inch jump with one leg for the last few years of my career,” she said. “And now I do 20 inches, no problem.”
Whether or not Vonn can get back on track is another question, which will be answered in the coming months of racing.
She certainly has her skeptics. In the sports world, comeback announcements are often accompanied by cynics who wonder if it’s all just for sponsorship or press coverage. With Vonn’s history of injuries and the dangers of skiing, some fans just don’t think she can do it.
“I’ve been needing a knee replacement for 10 years, so I know what that’s about, but racing is a lot different,” said Bruce Evans, a spectator who arrived at Beaver Creek on Saturday decked out in an American flag ski suit and wearing an American shirt in his hands. flag signed by everyone from 1960s Alpine Olympian Billy Kidd to Vonn himself.
“Especially on descents you are on the edge all the time, otherwise you won’t get close to the top in the finishing order. As for making the choice, hey, more power to her, especially if she can be successful at it.
Vonn says she’s all in.
“I’m not just joining the U.S. Ski Team again,” she said Friday.
Instead, Vonn said she plans to get back to where she was before she retired.
“Success is not just about participating,” Vonn said.
GO DEEPER
With the World Cup in her backyard, Mikaela Shiffrin and Aleksander Kilde are focusing on recovery
(Top image: Meech Robinson / The Athletics; photos: Dustin Satloff/US Ski and Snowboard/Getty Images; My Kasapoglu / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images; Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)