Lindsey Vonn’s ‘impossible’ comeback continues with 2026 Olympics | Lindsey Vonn

TThere’s no denying the nervous concern that swept the ski racing world after Lindsey Vonn announced her surprise comeback in November. She had retired from racing almost six years earlier because of a bad right knee, worn out by a series of gruesome accidents and multiple surgeries, and could no longer withstand the rigors of the circuit. Now she suggested a return on the wrong side of 40 with a titanium knee to a high-risk sport in which no woman at 34 has ever won a top race.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Vonn’s humiliation. In the two months since her retirement, she finished 14th in the Super-G in St. Moritz before improving to sixth and fourth in her next two races in St. Anton. Incredibly, she feels healthier now than when she began her extraordinary career in early 2019. And after just three starts, Vonn’s chances of competing in a fifth Olympics next year in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo seem more than plausible. From NBC’s perspective, this is an opportunity that could be described as such in industry jargon Manna from heaven.

Vonn’s unlikely comeback continues this weekend in Cortina, where she will compete in both the downhill and super-G on the Olimpia delle Tofane course that will host next year’s Winter Games – a mountain inseparable from her connected to overseas history. It was here as a teenager that she achieved the first of her 137 World Cup podiums in 2004, before winning there a record 12 times from 2008 to 2018, more than any other female ski racer in history. Here in 2015 she also broke Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s 35-year-old record of 62 World Cup victories in all disciplines.

“I’m not holding on to the past, I’m embracing the future,” Vonn wrote before her first comeback race in December. “Call me naive, but I believe in the impossible. Because it’s just impossible until someone does it.”

If ever there was an athlete whose journey didn’t lack a conclusion, it might be Vonn. Winner of three Olympic medals and 82 World Cup races, the American superstar from the rolling hills of Minnesota seemingly lived up to her potential after enduring so much pain at the end of her career. After watching her win bronze in the downhill at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games and become, at 33, the oldest alpine skier ever to win a medal in Olympic history, Vonn’s sister told me near the finish corral: “Everyone single meal she has eaten in the last two years is building up to this moment. Every single workout in the gym. There’s no telling how much of everything she’s done every day for the past eight years was for that day and those two minutes. The emotion of it is kind of overwhelming.”

No one would have thought twice about Vonn riding off into the South Korean sunset that afternoon, but she pushed through another World Cup season and left no crumbs behind with another downhill medal at the World Championships in Åre. She retired on her own terms and without regrets, retiring as the most decorated skier in history and the sport’s global figurehead. During her absence, she remained active, engaging in windsurfing, polo and motorsports, and maintaining a rigorous fitness regime despite chronic pain. “I was content to be done,” she said last month. “But of course I missed being fast.”

Everything changed last April when Vonn underwent a partial right knee replacement, replacing part of her bone with titanium components. The groundbreaking surgery, performed by orthopedic surgeon Martin Roche, not only alleviated the ongoing discomfort she had been dealing with but also restored her confidence. When she suddenly found herself pain-free while playing tennis and other sports, Vonn wondered what skiing would feel like.

“It completely changed my life,” Vonn said. “I really thought when I retired that giving my body a break would ease a lot of the pain, but that wasn’t the case. And I tried to have surgery and clean it out, but my knee was just too far gone. I knew there were some technological advances in the medical field that could potentially help me, but I never imagined that within days of the surgery I would be living a completely different life.

“I literally don’t think about the knee at all. That’s crazy because that’s all I’ve thought about for the last 11 years.”

Her U.S. teammates, including some she first met at autograph signings as children, weren’t sure she was serious when she began training with them in November, but it didn’t take long for her fighting spirit to shine shone through. As she pushed new limits, Vonn also became a mentor to America’s younger skiers, offering guidance, encouragement and tactical advice that only someone with her experience could provide.

The 40-year-old from St. Paul has re-entered the World Cup circuit under a new wildcard rule that allows former champions coming out of retirement to receive decent race numbers without accumulating ranking points in lower positions to have to. Level competitions. But that also means she leaves the gate long after the top skiers, so she faces a bumpier and more challenging route. That will change if she continues to get results like her first three attempts.

Vonn wants to join a growing class of professional athletes who have challenged conventional notions of longevity and resilience by competing into their 40s. These include NFL quarterback Tom Brady, seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton and 23-time major singles winner Serena Willams. It’s early days, but her first two months are a testament to advances in medical technology and the indomitable spirit of an athlete who refuses to let age or injury limit her limits.

“Tom, Lewis, Serena. They all did it,” Vonn said this week. “The resources athletes now have allow for better recovery. So even though you’re older, you still recover faster than I did when I was in my twenties. … It changed the perception of how long an athlete can compete. I think it’s mostly a mindset change, but it’s possible.”