Lindsey
Vonn
United States
·
Alpine Skiing
Date of birth | 18 October 1984 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Saint Paul, Minnesota |
Age | 41 |
Nationality | United States |
Career start | 2002 |
Disciplines | Alpine Skiing Combined / Alpine Skiing Downhill / Alpine Skiing Giantslalom / Alpine Skiing Super G |
Lindsey Vonn’s name is synonymous with dominance in alpine skiing. Known for her fearless approach and record-breaking career, she’s inspired countless fans and athletes worldwide.
Lindsey made her World Cup debut at 16 and competed at her first Winter Olympic Games a year later, beginning a career that would establish her as one of alpine skiing’s all-time greats.
Early career dominance
After winning her first overall World Cup title in 2008, Lindsey became the first American woman to win back-to-back titles in 2009 and then completed a hat-trick of consecutive overall Crystal Globes in 2010, when she also made history as the first American woman to win Olympic downhill gold in Vancouver. She also skied to a bronze medal in the super-G. She missed out on a fourth consecutive overall World Cup title in 2011 by just three points, but at the start of the 2011–12 season, thanks to her first giant slalom win, she became only the fifth woman ever to win a World Cup race in each alpine discipline.
In the 2012-13 season, Lindsey suffered the first of two major knee injuries in her career, tearing her ACL and MCL in a crash at the World Championships, but such was her early-season dominance of the downhill field that she still won that World Cup crown for the sixth time.
Unfortunately, repeated aggravation of her ACL injury led to Lindsey missing almost all of 2014. Showing not only her greatness but also her gritty determination, she shrugged off her lack of a cruciate ligament to come back and deliver a mighty record-breaking 2014–15 season, breaking Austrian Annemarie Moser-Pröll's 35-year-old record for the most women’s World Cup wins ever when she won her 63rd race in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
Injuries take a toll
As she pushed the speed of women's downhill racing further and further over the years, it wasn’t just an astonishing number of wins that Lindsey racked up, but more major injuries as well. Eventually, following an incredible 82 World Cup race wins (a record only fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin has beaten), 137 podiums, four overall titles, eight World Championships medals and three Olympic medals, she announced her retirement on February 1, 2019.
“It’s been an emotional two weeks making the hardest decision of my life, but I have accepted that I cannot continue ski racing," Lindsey said at the time. "I will compete at the World Championships next week in Åre, Sweden, and they will be the final races of my career.”
In true Lindsey style, she took her final bow after breaking more records, the then 34-year-old becoming the oldest woman to win a medal at a world championship and the first female racer to win medals at six different world championships
Post retirement, Lindsey continued to push boundaries by becoming the first woman to ski the famed and feared Streif downhill, but no one, Lindsey included, expected to see her back racing on the World Cup circuit.
A return to competition
All that changed in November 2024. After undergoing partial knee replacement surgery earlier that year, Lindsey rejoined the Stifel U.S. Ski Team and returned to World Cup competition in December. In her first race back, a super-G in St Moritz, Switzerland, she delivered an encouraging performance to finish 14th.
Lindsey continued to work hard on her comeback throughout the 2024-25 season, with encouraging results and setbacks all taken in her stride as she strove to improve race on race. She eventually gained the tangible reward her dedication deserved towards the end of the World Cup season. At the final Super-G race of the season in Sun Valley, Idaho, she finished a brilliant second behind Swiss star Lara Gut-Behrami, becoming the oldest woman to podium at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup.
Vonn, who has 28 Super G wins and five Super G titles to her name, said: "I finally put all the pieces together. This season there have been glimpses of good skiing, but I always made a mistake here or there. But today it was enough to get on the podium."
Things were to get even better, however, between the end of one season and the start of the next. At the opening downhill race of the 2025–26 season in St Moritz, Vonn showed she still has everything necessary to compete at the top level, winning the Downhill race to claim the 83rd World Cup win of her career and her first since March 2018. The victory made her the oldest skier to win a World Cup, beating the previous record set by Swiss legend Didier Cuche. One day later, Lindsey was on the podium again after her historic World Cup downhill win. She finished second by a razor-thin margin of 0.24s.
Lindsey added another World Cup victory to her career tally in January 2026. In Zauchensee, Austria, she finished in first place with a time of 1m 06.24s, making it her fourth podium in the four downhill races so far this season.
Staying positive after another major setback
In late January 2026, Vonn was looking to continue her remarkable start to the season, but suffered a nasty crash in Switzerland that caused her to tear her ACL. The American refused to stay on the sidelines, however, and just one week later flew to Italy to compete at Milano-Cortina 2026.
Unfortunately, just 13 seconds into her Downhill run, Vonn hit a gate and suffered a complex tibia fracture in her left leg and a broken ankle. She immediately underwent multiple surgeries in Italy before flying back to the US for further treatment.
Revealing that she came close to having her leg amputated in the aftermath of her crash, Vonn will have to wait a year for the bones to heal properly and will then consider surgery on her torn ACL.
It may be another devastating injury for Vonn, but she has no regrets. Posting on social media, she said: “I showed up and did what most thought was impossible at my age with a partial knee replacement. These memories I’ll have forever and I’m grateful for every one of them. Every moment was amazing. Every moment was worth it.”
Lindsey Vonn with crystal globes #18 and #19
© Erich Spiess/ASP/Red Bull
In 2023, she came back for a special 'one off' run down the Streif
© Joerg Mitter/Red Bull Content Pool
At 40, she's become the oldest woman to podium in World Cup history
© Erich Spiess/Red Bull Content Pool
Vonn's comeback will continue to be a compelling storyline
© Johann Groder/Red Bull Content Pool