US skiing sensation Lindsey Vonn doesn’t regret her career in the slightest, but it has come at a cost.
In her new memoir, the 37-year-old admitted that years of injuries sustained from skiing 85 mph down mountain’s still haven’t fully healed and that she wakes up in pain every day.
The skiing sensation retired from competitive action in 2019 after a glittering career that spanned nearly two decades.
Regarded as one of America’s finest ever athletes and the face of winter sports in general, Vonn helped elevate skiing to new heights and her legacy will eternally live on.
Bursting onto the scene
Vonn burst onto the international scene in 1999 when she was just 14-years-old. Competing at Italy’s esteemed Trofeo Topolino competition, she became the first American to win the slalom race.
Just three years later, she made her Winter Olympics debut in Utah, though she finished only sixth in the Alpine combined event.
This performance sparked a mind shift for Vonn and she credits fellow skiing legend, Julia Mancuso, for helping change her mentality.
Mancuso and her father visited Vonn in California and took her on a bike ride. With limited biking experience, the US star found herself miles behind and embarrassed. This moment, she stresses, caused her to realise that she had to drastically rethink her attitude towards training if she was going to be successful.
Titles galore
In 2007, Vonn tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee but rebounded from this setback to have the most successful year of her career.
In the 2007-08 World Cup campaign, Vonn won six races to claim her maiden overall title –– finishing more than 200 points ahead of her nearest competitor.
This momentum continued into the following year, where the American won gold medals in the downhill and supergiant slalom at the 2009 World Championships and her second World Cup downhill and overall titles.
By 2012, Vonn had won races in each of the five alpine skiing disciplines and that same year she won the overall World Cup for the fourth time.
Olympic success
Vonn competed at four Winter Olympics in total and made her debut in the competition when she was just 16.
Her most successful Games, however, came at Vancouver in 2010, where she claimed gold in the downhill and bronze in the Super-G.
Four years later, Vonn was forced to miss out in Sochi through injury. As she approached the age of 30, many assumed her dreams of more Olympic glory were over, especially with her ongoing physical problems, but the US icon had other ideas.
At the PyeongChang Games in 2018, Vonn won a bronze medal in the downhill event to secure her third Olympic medal –– the second most of any American skier, behind Mancuso.
Mental health struggles
Since retiring in 2019, Vonn has been eager to speak about mental health and opened up about her own problems during her career.
The three-time Olympic medallist revealed she had quietly been fighting depression for years but didn’t open up about it at first as it was a sign of weakness.
Speaking to USA Today, the 37-year-old stressed that she wished she’d been strong enough to talk about her struggles in the early part of her career.
"I think the older I got and the more support I got from others, the more I realized there's no shame in it,” she said.
"I feel like, honestly, everyone should have a therapist. It should be like having a dentist or going to a paediatrician. We should all take mental health seriously and do our best every day to make sure we're taking care of it."
An enduring legacy
Overall, across her remarkable career, Vonn was one of just six women to win World Cup races in all five skiing disciplines.
Her 82 World Cup race wins are also a women’s record and in 2010 Laureus named her their Sportswoman of the Year.
If injuries had not blighted her career, there is no telling how many accolades she might have won.
And now, though she may look back on a career filled with mental anguish and physical discomfort, her long list of achievements suggests it was all worth it.
Vonn will forever be a pioneer for skiing, a trailblazer for winter sports and an inspiration to budding competitors worldwide.