Skistar Lindsey Vonn used the large Olympic stage for her first tearful performance a la Hollywood right after her arrival in Pyeongchang.
When she spoke at her first press conference about her recently deceased grandfather Don Kildow, the American suddenly began to cry,”I miss him so much, he was such an important part of my life,”said Vonn sobbing.
“It would have been so nice if he had experienced it, but I know he’d watch and help me,”she added in a tear-stitched voice:”I want to win for him!” She won’t be nervous,”because I know he’s protecting me, that makes me very calm,”said Vonn about her grandfather, who was responsible for the US Army in the Korean War (1950)
Vonn is aiming for her second gold medal in Pyeongchang at her fourth and “probably last” Olympic participation in the supreme discipline of departure after 2010 in Vancouver. The 2014 Games in Sochi had missed them due to injury.
“I had to wait a long time for these Olympic Games,”said Vonn,”I’ve had many highs and lows since Vancouver,” but now she is in good shape and feels fit, even though her right knee, which was once badly injured, is always causing her problems.
Vonn appeared accompanied by her little dog Lucy and with black gloves, because she didn’t want to catch the infection from potentially ill conversation partners.”She is definitely a bigger star than I am,”said Vonn about the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Since the summer, she has focused everything on Olympia, Vonn emphasized,”it was the first thing I thought of when I got up – and the last thing I did when I went to sleep. After the matches, she will continue skiing for at least another season to break Ingemar Stenmark’s record of victory in the World Cup, said Vonn. Of the 86 successes of Sweden, only five still separate them.