‘My Body Was Broken’ — Lindsey Vonn Gets Real About Her Retirement and Reveals Mindset Behind Making One of the Greatest Comebacks in Sport

Lindsey Vonn reflected on her injury-marred years and how coming back from those tough times was one of the hardest challenges she faced. After citing persistent injuries in 2019, Vonn announced her retirement but returned in 2024 to prove she had more to give beyond her already accomplished career.

Vonn will be heading to the 2026 Cortina Olympics in February, her fifth Olympic Games. She made her debut in 2002 and last competed in the 2018 PyeongChang, where she won the bronze medal in downhill.

Lindsey Vonn Talks About Retirement and How She Forged One of the Greatest Comebacks in History

Vonn has always had a penchant for everything fast, be it Formula 1 or alpine skiing. In 2019, with 82 World Cup wins under her belt, the 41-year-old bid goodbye to the sport and committed to another venture. However, she never dissociated herself from the sporting realm, all while building a diversified portfolio.

In 2024, her career-long pain caused by a wide number of crashes came to a permanent stop with a partial knee replacement surgery. Since then, she has been feeling better, uncovering strength in the gym and on the slopes alike. The Olympian returned to skiing in 2024, slowly rebuilt her rhythm, and ended the season with her first medal in seven years.

In the following season, Vonn did nothing but defy belief at her age, inching closer to Ingemar Stenmark’s tally by extending hers to 84. Now heading to the Winter Games, Vonn reflected on the tough periods she endured after crashes, when the world moved on as usual while she recovered from injuries, forced to stay away from her beloved sport.

“I stepped away from the sport because my body was broken. I’d crashed too many times, and I just couldn’t keep going. When you’re coming back from injury, the hardest thing is the isolation and being away from what makes you happy. You know, the world keeps spinning, but you’re standing still, and it’s hard to adjust to that,” she said in an interview with Under Armour.

It was then that she realized that gradually progressing can only take her where she wants to go. Vonn won two golds in the ongoing World Cup season, both in the downhill discipline.

READ MORE: Lindsey Vonn Shares the Personal Message That Grounds Her Olympic Mindset

The 84-time World Cup winner has done something in a physically demanding sport that many only dream of. During the same Under Armour excerpt, she credited her knee replacement surgery for giving her the pain-free life she needed to break more barriers in skiing.

She also expressed her love for skiing and the mountains, and for being better and faster with each passing day, adding that she was happily retired for 6 years and had nothing left to achieve or prove to anyone.

Instead, she returned to the sport simply for her love of it.