Ski racer Lindsey Vonn emphasized the day after her retirement in the combination of Pyeongchang that her Olympic career is over.
She also reaffirmed her goal to improve the record set by the legendary Swedish Ingemar Stenmark of 86 World Cup victories before leaving South Korea, saying,”I will not stop racing until I have broken it.
Vonn has won 81 World Cup races so far,”I think she said,” I can make it next season and I hope so, because I’m not getting any younger.”Vonn is 33 years old, she has won four races so far this season.” The next season will be better, I’ll be better focused, because I don’t think about Olympic Games all the time and I’m thinking about being in top form in February.”.
In Pyeongchang Vonn had won her third Olympic medal after gold (descent) and bronze (Super-G) in 2010. Since then, she reported, the new downhill Olympic champion Sofia Goggia (Italy) has tried to dissuade her from ending her Olympic career:”She wrote to me and tried to persuade me to continue until Beijing 2022.”
Vonn ruled out a rethink in her answer to Goggia,”I said I would go on if I could, but four years is a damn long time. Mikaela Shiffrin added a few minutes later about the approaching end of her teammate’s career:” I know Lindsey, I don’t believe her.
Vonn would still be happy to race against men, but she also admitted that the chances are now rather slim:”I’m not as physically competitive as I used to be,”she said, but the question remains whether the world federation FIS agrees. If this doesn’t happen, she has to look for other ways, a kind of show race is possible.