How Lindsey Vonn defied age and injury to win 2018 Winter Olympics bronze as US star now eyes Milano Cortina medal

Lindsey Vonn’s recent return to winning ways on the World Cup ski scene has paved the way for the American great to make another tilt at an Olympic medal in Milano Cortina in February having last competed at the Winter Games back in 2018. Then, the superstar defied injury, age and a roll call of younger rivals to take home her most recent Olympic medal - a bronze in the downhill.

Lindsey Vonn, who is making an improbable comeback run at the age of 41 to win a medal at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, is no stranger to injury - few skiers are.

But after winning gold in the downhill in Vancouver 2010, the US veteran's career took the sort of turn that many do not recover from. 

Vonn would have been a heavy favourite to make it back-to-back golds heading into Sochi 2014, after a series of World Cup wins.

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And the American would have been at the top of her game, very much at her peak, aged 29 when those Games rolled around. 

Sofia Goggia, who wound up one of her great rivals, was just 22 and still learning her trade. 

But then came the injury at the 2013 World Championships that ultimately ruled Vonn out of Sochi. 

She suffered a torn ACL and MCL with a tibial fracture, and then, after a gruelling rehab process, re-injured the same leg later that year, which forced her out of the Games.

Vonn in tears as she lifts first World Cup trophy since 2018

Video credit: TNT Sports

Instead, Vonn had to watch Tina Maze take gold in 2014, ahead of Dominique Gisin and Lara Gut-Behrami.

But Vonn was undeterred, and forced her way back to the top of the sport in the following years and earned a place on the US Olympic team bound for PyeongChang.

By 2018, Vonn’s spell at the top was seemingly drawing to a close. The wins were getting few and far between and the injuries continued to mount, although the American had taken a downhill bronze in the World Championships the previous year. 

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Widely touted as her last Olympics, 16 years after her first in Salt Lake City, Vonn went into the Games with expectations still high as one of the standout names in the sport - despite the rise of a certain Mikaela Shiffrin.

First up for Vonn was the super-G and she had the misfortune to draw the first bib and thus had to make her own line down the course. 

She finished a respectable joint-sixth with Ester Ledecka taking the gold but the downhill was always her best chance at a medal.

USA's bronze medallist Lindsey Vonn poses on the podium during the medal ceremony for the alpine skiing Women's Downhill at the Pyeongchang Medals Plaza during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games

Image credit: Getty Images

This time, Vonn was starting seventh, meaning she was able to watch her rival Goggia’s run and see her line. 

Goggia set a 1:39.22 for the rest to beat and while Vonn got close, she could not pip the Italian, finishing 0.47s back. 

Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel slotted in between the two with silver, leaving Vonn with a bronze in what at the time seemed set to be her final Olympic race. 

At the time it left Vonn as the oldest woman to medal in an Alpine skiing event and the woman with the most downhill Olympic medals. 

Considering her injury list, the multiple surgeries she had undergone in her lengthy career, and the amount of comebacks she has orchestrated, the bronze was symbolic of Vonn’s grit and determination. 

It was also an emotional result for the American, who had pointed to the sky as she crossed the line - revealing she had raced with her grandfather's initials on her helmet after he passed away a few months prior to the Games.

'I had to give it everything' - Vonn says risks paid off after securing the win in Zauchensee

Video credit: TNT Sports

The American retired at the start of 2019, after another injury, with an Olympic record of one gold, two hard-fought bronzes and a sense of what might have been. 

Except Vonn’s comeback to the sport means that Pyeongchang might not be the scene of her final Olympic medal after all, as the 41-year-old gets set to make more history in Milan Cortina.

Earlier this month, Vonn clinched the 84th World Cup win of a storied career as her remarkable comeback trail continues.

Vonn is second in the all-time standings for World Cup wins, trailing only the legendary Shiffrin, who leads the way with an emphatic 106.

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