Lindsey Vonn, the American skiing superstar, won the third Olympic medal of her career, but it was a bronze, not a gold, in the downhill.
Vonn finished behind Sofia Goggia, the first Italian woman to win the downhill, and Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway.
Shortly after her run, Vonn, 33, became emotional when asked about her future. “It’s sad, I love what I do, but my body just probably can’t take another four years,” she told NBC.
“It’s tough to contemplate this being my last Olympic downhill. I struggled to keep it all together, but I left it all on the mountain. I’d have loved a gold medal, but honestly, I’m so proud.”
So, no gold medal for Lindsey Vonn in the downhill. And no medal for the United States men's hockey team at these Winter Olympics. Vonn, a once-in-a-generation ski talent, added to her Olympic medal collection on Wednesday morning in South Korea after settling for the bronze, while the American men lost a heartbreaker to the Czechs, 3-2, in a shootout.
For the second consecutive Winter Olympics, the United States' men's hockey team has failed to medal.
Vonn, 33, was aiming to become the oldest woman to ever win a gold in the downhill but was beat by her good friend, Italy's Sofia Goggia. Goggia crossed in 1 minutes, 39.22 seconds and in doing so became the first Italian woman to ever win gold in the event.
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PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Lindsey Vonn, the most successful World Cup woman skier of all-time, is “99.9 percent sure” that Wednesday will mark her final Olympic downhill race.
She is not retiring just yet though.
The 33-year-old American’s plan, for the moment, is to carry on competing in the World Cup until she surpasses Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 race wins on the men’s circuit, the most by any athlete.
Vonn currently has 81 World Cup triumphs.
So another season, perhaps two, of powering down the slopes of Europe and North America. But no Beijing Games in 2022. No 37-year-old Vonn looking to add more gold to her legacy.
After downhill training on Tuesday, though, Vonn was asked if she was absolutely sure she would not be an Olympian again.
“I haven’t ever completely said that I am not,” she said, slightly opening the door, before almost closing it shut again.
“I feel like its 99.9 percent sure that I won’t but who knows, maybe something will come out and they will fix my knee up and I will be like robo-knee and ski like 10 more years and that would be ideal.”
Since first tearing her ACL in 2007, Vonn has suffered frequent knee ligament injuries as well as broken bones and missed the 2014 Sochi Games due to a serious knee injury she has been managing it ever since.
When it comes to the question of continuing in the sport or not, she said it is not a matter of motivation or desire but purely whether her knee can cope.
“Oh yeah, I love what I do. I have so much fun going fast and pushing myself to the limit on downhill skis there is nothing else I would rather do,” she said.
“So if I could physically continue skiing, then I absolutely will. But at this point, it takes a lot to make my knee good enough to ski downhill, it has to be pretty solid to push yourself at these speeds and be able to trust it.
“I am just counting on some medical miracles to extend my career.”
Barring that miracle, Wednesday’s downhill at Jeongseon Alpine Centre, where she faces a strong challenge from Italian Sofia Goggia, will be her final opportunity to add to the downhill gold and super-G bronze she won in Vancouver in 2010.
She starts as favorite, a familiar position and one she is comfortable with.
“It’s all or nothing so there is really no reason to be nervous or think about pressure or expectation because either I win or I lose,” she said.
“And if I am nervous I am going to lose anyway so what’s the point?”
Lindsey Vonn, one of the great alpine skiers of all time, was unable to repeat her downhill victory in the 2010 Olympics in a title defense eight years in the waiting on a sun-splashed Wednesday afternoon in Pyeongchang.
The American had been among the favorites to win gold in her strongest event but a mistake-free run was not enough to hold off Italy’s Sofia Goggia, who captured Olympic gold and shed her label as one of the world’s best skiers to have never won a major title on the biggest stage possible.
Goggia, the World Cup downhill leader whose previous career-best accolade had been a giant slalom bronze at last year’s world ski championships in St Moritz, was fifth out the starting gate and overcame a slow start to finish in 1 min, 39.22 sec, a time that no one else could match on a precarious course that produced eight DNFs at Jeongseon Alpine Centre.
“I moved like a Samurai,” the gregarious 25-year-old said afterward. “Usually I’m really chaotic. I just used my brain, because I have one, sometimes.”
Vonn, racing out of the seventh position, made no major errors but fell off the pace in the middle section after hitting a gate and finished 0.38 seconds behind her Italian rival. That time was good for second and held through all the top contenders, many of whom made mistakes that took them out of contention including Switzerland’s Lara Gut, who missed a gate, and falls by Austria’s Stephanie Venier and Italy’s Nadia Fanchini.
That was until a surprise run by Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel, the 19th racer of the day who finished 0.09 seconds behind Goggia to win the silver, nudged Vonn into third place.
“I thought I skied really well,” Vonn said. “I thought I executed the line perfectly. I thought I did great. Maybe I just was a little bit too clean, maybe a little bit too precise with the line. Maybe I should have let the skis run a little bit more. But I didn’t make any mistakes, I didn’t ski stiff, I wasn’t nervous, I laid it all on the line and that’s all I can do. I’ll look at the video, but I’m happy with what I did.”
The bronze makes Vonn, 33, the oldest female alpine skier to win a medal in Winter Games history, surpassing a record held by Austria’s Michaela Dorfmeister, who won golds in the downhill and the super-G at the Turin Olympics in 2006.
At the finish the American blew a kiss skyward for her grandfather, who passed away in November. Afterward a visibly emotional Vonn spoke about her grandfather, who passed away in November 2017: “I worked my butt off ... I’m really proud of my medal and I know he is too,” the Minnesota native said, adding this would be her final Olympics.
Vonn, who missed the chance to defend her Olympic title at Sochi due to injury, still has the alpine combined to come on Thursday, where she has an outside shot at another medal. But the completion of her signature event left the American feeling bittersweet.
“It’s sad, it’s my last downhill,” she said. “I wish I could keep going, I’m having so much fun and I love what I do, but my body just can’t take another four years. But I’m proud to be competing for my country, giving it all and proud to come away with a medal.”
