American alpine skier Lindsey Vonn sent a message to the internet trolls who bombarded her with abuse after she missed out on a Winter Olympics medal on Saturday.
Trolls, including some of President Donald Trump’s supporters, tweeted hateful messages at the 33-year-old four-time Olympian after she placed sixth in the women’s super-G event. Their comments were in apparent retaliation for Vonn’s criticism of Trump last month.
Julie Foudy, the former U.S. women’s national soccer team captain, spotted the offensive tweets and shared this message of support for Vonn:
I just spent last 20 min's reading thru tweets directed at @lindseyvonn. Sickened & disgusted once again by the lack of humanity that engulfs our country. She just raced her damn heart out & Trump supporters gloat/cheer/celebrate her inability to medal. Is this what we've become? — Julie Foudy (@JulieFoudy) February 17, 2018
Vonn replied that “not everyone has to like me but my family loves me and I sleep well at night.”
It’s ok Julie. Not everyone has to like me but my family loves me and I sleep well at night. I work hard and try to be the best person I can be. If they don’t like me 🤷🏼♀️ their loss I guess... Thank you for the support🙏🏻❤️ https://t.co/EaySJE7QAe — lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) February 17, 2018
“I work hard and try to be the best person I can be,” Vonn added. “If they don’t like me, their loss I guess.”
Vonn won two medals, a gold and a bronze, at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. A knee injury prevented her from competing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Her measured response to the critics earned plenty of praise:
You always be a champion, Lindsey. No matter what people says, your name is in the Olympic History, your legacy to Alpine Skiing is incredible! — Esporte pelo Juva (@EsportePeloJuva) February 17, 2018
I love you hun! 😍😍😍 — Marek Szkolnikowski (@mszkolnikowski) February 17, 2018
Vonn said it was “frustrating” to lose out in the super-G event, but she was “proud of the way” she “attacked the course.” Czech athlete Ester Ledecka won a surprise gold.
Frustrating to be so close to the podium and to have made such a big mistake...but that’s ski racing. I’m proud of the way I skied and how I attacked the course. I gave it my all and came up short. That’s life. Now it’s on to the Downhill! 💪🏻 — lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) February 17, 2018
Story highlights Vonn received abuse on Twitter after competing Saturday
She finished sixth in the women's Super G
Vonn spoke out against Donald Trump in a 2017 CNN interview
(CNN) Lindsey Vonn had barely finished her first race at PyeongChang 2018 when the online abuse resumed.
One of the most successful female ski racers of all time, Vonn had received comments in December from some people saying they hoped she'd break her neck after she told CNN in an interview she wouldn't visit the White House should she win a medal at the Winter Olympics.
"Well I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the president," the 33-year-old American had told CNN's Alpine Edge late last year.
Having missed out on the podium after making a costly mistake on the last turn of Saturday's women's super-G competition, Vonn once again found herself on the receiving end of a stream of negative comments, with some even wishing her physical harm.
The hate tweets prompted US soccer star Julie Foudy to write on Twitter: "I just spent last 20 min's reading thru tweets directed at @lindseyvonn. Sickened & disgusted once again by the lack of humanity that engulfs our country.
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American skiing legend Lindsey Vonn’s return to the Olympic slopes after an eight-year absence ended in defeat and confirmation she is close to retirement.
Vonn will attempt to add to the Olympic gold she won in Vancouver in 2010 in two more events in Korea and then call it quits.
Von, 33, who is at her fourth Olympics, said last night: ‘I love ski racing. I want to keep racing forever.
‘Unfortunately, my body is not the Terminator. I can't take as many beatings as I used to… I would say 99% sure this is my last Olympics.’
Lindsey Vonn said she's '99 per cent sure' this will be her last Olympics and will soon retire. Vonn is pictured above at the Alpine Skiing Ladies Super-G on day eight of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games on February 17
‘Unfortunately, my body is not the Terminator, Vonn said hinting at her retirement
The America skier, pictured above the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, finished in sixth place
She had hoped to win gold in the ladies' super-G at Jeongseon Alpine Centre, and dedicate it to her late grandfather Donald Kildow who died last November.
When she realized a medal was out of her reach yesterday, she looked up to the skies.
She revealed: ‘He (my grandfather) was supposed to help me. I was like: “What happened, grandpa? Why did we not ski better?”
‘I'm skiing for him. He's been such a big inspiration in my life. It's hard for me that he's not here. I wish he was. I ski with his ashes. I just want to win for him.'
‘I did the best I could. I'm happy with my performance. It might not be a medal, but I definitely gave it everything I had.’
She added: ‘I attacked. Unfortunately, I got a headwind in the middle section, but I attacked. I'm disappointed, but I'm not upset.’
She was the first competitor to hit the slopes wearing the number one bib.
Vonn said she was hoping to win gold to honor her late grandfather
‘That's the thing with running No.1. You're not able to see any of the other racers go. You don't know what the speeds are; don't know if the line is exactly as you expected,' she said.
‘I did the best I could with the information I could get. At least I'm not fourth. I'm happier to be (sixth) than fourth.’
Speaking about her long wait to compete at the Olympics, she said: ‘I've had a roller- coaster the last eight years with so many injuries.’
She faulted and was wide on one of the last turns late in the course after skiing a near-perfect run up to that point.
She finished in one minute, 21.49 seconds, and tied for sixth place.
The Czech Republic’s Ester Ledecka, 22, won the gold 1:21.11. Silver went to Sochi champion Anna Veith of Austria. Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein took the bronze.
JEONGSEON, South Korea — Lindsey Vonn’s first Olympic race in eight years included one obvious, late mistake that she was sure cost her a medal — maybe even the gold.
Truth is, the American generally considered the greatest female ski racer in history botched things in the upper half of the super-G course Saturday, too, and so she wound up in a tie for sixth place, 0.38 seconds behind surprise champion Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic and 0.27 away from third place.
Vonn’s take on her run? “Really good. Really good. Really good. Baaaaad.”
At Vancouver in 2010, she took the bronze in the super-G and the gold in the downhill. She was forced to sit out the Sochi Games four years ago after tearing ligaments in her right knee.
So it was a thrill to be back on the Olympic stage this time for what she has said will be the final go-round.
But the four-time overall World Cup champion — and owner of the most race wins on that circuit by a woman, second-most by anyone — focused afterward on a particular miscue. It arrived in what she called “the last critical section,” about 6 seconds from the end of a race that took the winner 1 minute, 21.11 seconds to complete, just 0.01 seconds ahead of silver medalist Anna Veith of Austria, the 2014 champion.
Entering a jump-turn combination, Vonn allowed one of her skis to lift off the snow too much and swept several feet wide of the proper path, barely clearing a gate.
“I misjudged how I came in there,” Vonn acknowledged.
That gave away more than a quarter of a second to Ledecka in the final quarter of the piste.
If Vonn hadn’t done that, she said: “I think I would be on the podium, at bare minimum. I mean, that mistake was really big, and I’m only a couple tenths out of first. So I would estimate yes.”
Before that portion: “I mean, I felt really good. I was like, ‘Yes! I got this. I got this.’ And I knew I had to focus all the way to the finish because of that turn.”
Just as consequential, perhaps, was that she also lost quite a bit of time earlier: Vonn reached the halfway point of the race with only the 16th-best time, more than a half-second slower in that section than bronze medalist Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein, for example.
Vonn did make up for some of that by being fastest of everyone over the next quarter of the course, before the final error effectively eliminated any realistic chance at a medal.
Weirather noticed the early problems, saying that Vonn’s later flub “was actually not as costly as it looked, because she didn’t lose that much time there. She lost a whole bunch at the top.”
Everyone was watching Vonn at the beginning because she was the first racer out of the gate on a sunny day with nary a cloud. The start was delayed an hour because of strong winds, and those gusts of air appeared to come and go, helping some skiers and hurting others.
Vonn won one of the five super-G World Cup races she entered so far this season, putting her 10th in the standings, which meant she got the last choice among the top 10 for a place in the skiing order Saturday. That left her with bib No. 1, which is not necessarily ideal, because she didn’t get to watch anyone else navigate the route before she had to go.
Plus, as Italy’s Sofia Goggia, a pal of Vonn’s who finished 11th, put it, “If you get the info, you are more calm.”
Now Vonn will get a few days to gather herself and begin preparing for her best event, the downhill, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
She won three World Cup downhills in a row before heading to South Korea.
“In general, this season, I feel like I’ve been much better in downhill than super-G. And this hill suits me really well for downhill, also,” Vonn said. “I’m confident for the downhill.”
