Olympia 2018: Lindsey Vonns last time: bronze, tears and pride

The Italian Sofia Goggia dechrones Speed Queen Lindsey Vonn and wins gold in the downhill. For Vonn, after eight years of agony, bronze, tears and “pride”remain.

Lindsey Vonn had laughed and cried, cried and laughed, but now the dethroned Speed Queen left the new ski queen’s biggest stage. When Vonn left the finish area of Jeongseon after 2926 days of futile torture and her last Olympic downhill run, Sofia Goggia fell to her knees before the podium and kissed the snow.

“Lindsey is the best ski racer in history, it’s unbelievable that I beat her,”said Goggia later, and the green-white-red Tricolore hung over the shoulders of Italy’s first downhill Olympic champion. The 25-year-old, who calls herself a “wild chicken” and races like that, seemed to be quite controlled:”I am a volcano, but I haven’t broken out yet,”she said.

Quite different from the other way around. When she realized that eight years after her first Olympic victory in the supreme discipline, eight years after her first Olympic victory, it would not be enough for gold or even silver again, she let her emotions run wild. She cried live and at the best time on American television. At the moment of her perhaps greatest defeat, she showed greatness and embraced Goggia with a smile. And she sent a greeting to heaven, to her late grandpa Don.

“I wanted to win him so badly,” she said in tears,”but I think I made him proud anyway, with bronze, 0.47 seconds behind Goggia and 0.38 seconds behind Norway’s sensational runner-up Ragnhild Mowinckel. Viktoria Rebensburg was as ninth in her last Olympic race without a chance.

To” 99.99 percent” the Winter Games will not see them again, Vonn said,”unless a medical miracle” happened. I am very grateful and extremely proud to be on the podium,”she said,” it was a long way to go, with many injuries, some severe and some disappointment – the bitterest when she missed 2014 Olympia. The knee.

“Yes,”Vonn said, sighed,”yes, I’ll miss Olympia.” She loves the fight for the medals, the feeling of “if it’s cutting you off at the start because of the pressure.””But her body hurts so much”. At 33 years of age, the now oldest winner of an alpine Olympic medal, Ingemar Stenmark from Sweden wants to drive one more season in order to break the record of 86 World Cup victories.

But father Alan, who cheered on his daughter at the edge of the piste in the family circle, hopes for more. Tennis superstar Roger Federer (36) or Tom Brady (40), the quarterback, played it before, he told USA Today. Vonn had to dose their inserts evenly. He was not entirely happy with the daughter’s last Olympic downhill run, he said,”She should have risked more.