Lindsey Vonn Has Nothing Left to Prove

It’s a Tuesday afternoon in early September in a warehouse in Brooklyn’s Red Hook, where Lindsey Vonn stands at the center of a 20-person crew moving with the precision of a pit team.

She arrived barefaced, hair damp from her post-gym shower, and went straight into hair and makeup—three stylists working at once while she offered calm, exact feedback. She’s done this countless times, toggling between athlete and model, snow and studio. That’s the duality of Lindsey Vonn, the consummate professional, who floats between the two worlds with fluency.

At her request, the genre-bending vocals of Jessie Murph’s country trap album pulse through the speakers. The ski racer is in her country music era, she says. (“Nothing sad, nothing about heartbreak.”) The set hums with energy—fans roaring, camera shutters firing, stylists darting in to adjust a trench coat or brush bronzer on her cheeks—yet Vonn remains composed, fully in control.

We’re shooting the Outside magazine winter cover (yes, this one), and we’re in Brooklyn, because in the month before the start of the World Cup ski season, if you want Lindsey, you go to Lindsey.

The choreography of her schedule is well-rehearsed: dawn workouts, media, evening fundraisers. Grind and spectacle, both essential.

By late afternoon, she’s visibly tired. Her movements slow; she goes inward, conserving energy. There’s another event waiting, another stage to step onto. When the camera lowers, she studies the monitor—muscle tone, posture, jawline, light. It isn’t vanity so much as it is maintaining agency. She’s spent decades shaping how the world sees her: strong, feminine, fierce. With the next Olympics on the horizon, she wants to be certain that the image still tells the truth. Control is her protection. It’s the same discipline she brings to everything she does.

When the lens lifts again, she’s locked in—eyes fixed, posture sharp. The athlete reappears, and she delivers.

Vonn’s ability to prioritize and compartmentalize like this—to give no less than 100 percent in any given moment—is her signature operating system. It’s what powered 82 World Cup wins, four overall titles, 16 discipline titles, and three Olympic medals before she retired in 2019. Her list of accolades outnumber her injuries, but not by much. Over 19 years, she endured ligament tears, fractures, concussions, and 12 major surgeries, even racing the season before her temporary retirement without a lateral collateral ligament and with three fractures in her left leg.

“What I did wasn’t easy,” she says. “There aren’t words to quantify how hard it was for as long as I did it.”

That same drive fueled her comeback last season, six years post-retirement and after a partial knee replacement. “I’d expected never to race again,” she says. “But I can physically do it. And I love ski racing—life’s too short not to take opportunities like this.”

Without having trained for very long before the start of the season, Vonn still placed second in a super giant slalom (super-G) in March, becoming the oldest woman, at 40, to podium in a World Cup race. Now she’s setting her sights on the 2026 Winter Games in Cortina, Italy—the site of both her first World Cup podium and her record-breaking 63rd win.

Her coach, Aksel Lund Svindal, says her skiing remains powerful, though she’s catching up on technique and equipment. “When someone like Lindsey believes you can contribute, it feels right to get involved again,” he says. “Plus, she puts in the work.”

That’s Vonn’s ethos: work harder than her rivals, than herself yesterday. The question now is whether even she can outpace time. A Cortina podium would close the loop on a career that ended too soon and prove that greatness doesn’t have to age out.

At 17, in 2002, Vonn made her Olympic debut in Salt Lake City, Utah—the goal she’d declared at age nine at her family’s kitchen table in Burnsville, Minnesota. Her dad didn’t flinch: OK, let’s get to work. They mapped the path to get there.

Her parents and four siblings were all in. As the oldest, she learned to manage chaos and focus on what she could control. Her mom, Linda Krohn Lund—who passed away in 2022 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—had suffered a stroke during childbirth that left her physically limited for life. Still, Vonn remembers her as endlessly positive.

“She was faced with a lot of challenges in her life and always kept trying,” Vonn says. “I felt an obligation to do my best because my mom’s injuries from her stroke were permanent, but I could have surgery and work hard and come back. It felt like that was my responsibility to her.”

Her father, Alan Kildow, introduced the family to skiing and often took them on trips to Colorado, but it was the 262 feet of vertical relief at Buck Hill that truly shaped Vonn. Coached by Austrian legend Erich Sailer, who also trained her father, Vonn learned through relentless repetition—sometimes 1,000 gates in a single day. Under the lights after school, she fell in love with speed. She wasn’t a natural, she admits, but she was driven and always the last to leave training.

By 2002, Vonn made Team USA. The family had moved to Vail, Colorado, to elevate her training. At the Salt Lake City Olympics, she raced the women’s combined, finishing as the top American. (I was 12 years old, watching from the grandstands, with my younger brother and dad, who had driven us to Utah from Colorado to watch the spectacle.) While she didn’t medal, it was a remarkable debut that foreshadowed what was to come.

Vonn stayed on the United States team for the 2006 Games but crashed in training and was airlifted from the course. She returned to the race and finished eighth in the downhill. Then came Vancouver, when everything changed. Her 2010 gold in downhill (the first ever for a U.S. woman) and bronze in super-G launched her into a new orbit. Suddenly, she was the face of Team USA on late-night shows and in Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue. Sponsors like Red Bull, Rolex, Under Armour, and, later, Oakley put her front and center worldwide.

The fame brought attention and media coverage of her personal life that often overshadowed her accomplishments, but Vonn learned to block out the noise and focus on what she could control. She used media attention to help sustain the costly reality of American ski racing while bringing rare visibility to her sport.

Unlike in Austria or Switzerland, where ski racers are celebrated as national heroes and supported by their federations, U.S. athletes operate in a more entrepreneurial system—relying on team resources, sponsorships, and personal partnerships to fund their seasons. Vonn turned that model to her advantage, leveraging her fame and business savvy to keep racing and redefine what it meant to be an American ski racer.

“Skiing isn’t a mainstream sport,” she says. “My dad told me early I had to be more than a ski racer—to work hard off the mountain, not just on it.”

Almost no one makes real money in ski racing, she adds. It’s a high-risk sport with a slim chance of avoiding serious injury—athletes risk their lives every day for modest rewards. Most professional baseball players earn more in one season than even the top ski racers make in their entire careers. “That’s why I work hard at everything,” she says, “not just skiing.”

Vonn is candid about the fact that her success on the mountain opened doors into boardrooms, investments, and entrepreneurship. But ski racing remains a niche sport, one that briefly surges in visibility every four years during the Olympics.

It was the first time in a very, very long time that I didn’t have pain.

Vonn crashed at the 2013 World Championships in Austria, tearing her anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments and fracturing her tibial plateau. A comeback attempt later that year proved premature. She reinjured both ligaments, sidelining her from the 2014 Sochi Games.

At 33, she returned to the world stage at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, winning bronze in downhill and becoming the oldest woman to win an Olympic medal in Alpine skiing history. That medal marked the start of her legacy years and her final pursuit: breaking Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 World Cup wins. (Mikaela Shiffrin would break that record in 2023.) Vonn famously told the German press that she’d choose the World Cup record over winning another Olympic gold. But as the record drew near, so did the limits of her body.

HBO’s documentary Lindsey Vonn: The Final Season captured what was then her would-be last year racing, including her final race in Cortina in 2019. A six-time super-G winner on that course, Vonn burst out of the gate with immense power, showing no outward signs of the pain she carried. The race announcers marveled as she attacked the run on a knee they described as “hanging together by shreds of cartilage,” charging at 70 miles per hour.

It was sheer willpower—her body absorbing brutal G-forces through the opening turns. She made it through the most difficult section, essentially on one leg, before missing a gate and skiing out of the course. Her American teammate Mikaela Shiffrin went on to win, while Vonn was met by her Italian rival Sofia Goggia, who handed her a bouquet in the finish arena.

Vonn broke down in tears. When asked about the next race, she said, “I don’t know if I’m going to Garmisch. I’m not sure if I can keep going.” Turning to her longtime physiotherapist, Lindsay Winninger, she said, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Winninger pushed back—as she and everyone in Vonn’s corner had always done, an expectation Vonn herself had instilled in those closest to her. In hindsight, Winninger admits she knew it was the end. Continuing could have risked not just Vonn’s career but her safety.

“Some injuries you don’t walk away from,” Winninger says. “I worried the danger wasn’t worth it. We let her make the decision, but it was hard to watch.”

Watching the exchange between Vonn and Winninger now—knowing it wasn’t truly the end—feels almost torturous. You want to reach through time and tell her it’s going to be OK, that the future holds more than she could imagine. And yet, Vonn insists that if she could go back to that moment, she wouldn’t say a word to her former self.

“I wouldn’t say anything,” Vonn says. “I had to experience that. I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t figured out who I was outside of ski racing. I truly thought it was gone forever—but I needed that perspective to become who I am now.”

Perhaps it was that deep-seated sense of self that carried her through the day in Cortina, eyes wet behind aviators as she moved from the finish corral into a crowd of fans. Devastated and in pain, she still paused to sign autographs—a quiet act of resilience from an athlete who has always known how to flip the switch and keep showing up.

Vonn withdrew from Garmisch and officially retired the following month in Åre, Sweden. She finished third, just four wins shy of Stenmark, who was watching.

“That’s the best I could have done today,” she said at the finish. “I’m very, very happy and thankful for bronze.”

There’s a version of her story that ends here in 2019: a gracious finish, a bittersweet farewell, the body quits, the mind accepts, the star moves on to business and philanthropy. That story is tidy, but it’s also not true. What actually happened was grief.

She retired when she still wanted it, she has admitted, and that broke her more than any crash ever did.

In late 2020, her engagement to hockey player P.K. Subban ended. She moved back to Utah but avoided skiing—it was too painful, both physically and emotionally. Instead, she poured herself into business and her foundation, The Lindsey Vonn Foundation, which helps girls pursue their athletic dreams through camps and scholarships.

Teammate Jacqueline Wiles felt that support firsthand. When Vonn learned the young racer wasn’t fully funded in her second year on the U.S. Ski Team, she stepped in and covered her costs, also making Wiles an ambassador for her foundation. Even at her peak, Vonn made a point of lifting others coming up behind her.

After retirement, though, watching from the sidelines was hard. “I still felt like I could be there,” she says. “I didn’t want to allow myself to think about it, so it was easier just not to watch.”

In her daily life, almost everything was physically painful. Even socializing was hard. She’d try to join a friend and her kids on a hike, and simply couldn’t keep up. “It’s kind of crazy that I can’t do a 20-minute walk with a six-year-old,” she says. For someone who thrives on speed and adrenaline, something had to change.

In April 2023, Vonn underwent a partial right knee replacement at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Florida, where surgeons used a robot-assisted procedure to resurface the damaged joint with custom titanium and polyethylene components.

She soon began hiking, playing tennis, and lifting again—without pain. As her confidence grew, she pushed harder. By July of that year, she flew to Europe to click back into her skis after years off snow. “It was the first time in a very, very long time that I didn’t have pain,” she says. “I tried not to get ahead of myself … I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

In August, she flew to New Zealand to test the waters. Skiing super-G on a glacier, it was immediately clear—it was going to work. “This whole journey felt like riding a bike,” says Vonn.

Ski racing is something I do, not who I am. It doesn’t define me, but I still genuinely love it.

“It feels like home when I’m in the start gate,” she says. “It doesn’t feel like I’ve been retired for six years—it’s what I’ve spent most of my life doing.” The world of racing felt the same, but her perspective had changed. “I realized ski racing is something I do, not who I am. It doesn’t define me, but I still genuinely love it. For as dangerous as it is, I love going 80 miles an hour down a mountain.”

The knee replacement gave her something she thought she’d lost: a body she trusts to move her through her day, and the intensity of ski racing, pain-free. No longer in survival mode, Vonn was ready to see how far she could go.

“I have nothing to prove. I said that from the beginning of this comeback, or adventure, or whatever you want to call it. I’ve done everything—more than everything—I ever expected or hoped for in my career,” she says. “I could not be more proud of what I achieved, and considering all my injuries, it was a miracle I even did what I did. This is not about proving anything to anyone.”

That perspective has given her freedom. She no longer feels compelled to risk everything at all costs. “I know when to pull the e-brake,” she says. Last season in Garmisch, for instance, she opted not to finish the downhill, a scenario where, in the past, she admits she would have pushed through and risked a crash.

Years of competing with injuries forced her to adapt, to become a smarter racer when her body couldn’t do what it once had. “I’m fearless, but I’m calculated,” says Vonn. “I’m not just throwing my body down a mountain without thought … I’m also smart.”

At her core, Vonn is still a fierce competitor with exacting standards for herself. After the devastating race in Cortina that ultimately led her to retire, she told her father on the phone that she wasn’t going to “sit here and grind it out for no reason” if she couldn’t ski the way she wanted. She had always known that if the time came when she could no longer win, she wouldn’t keep racing. Now, that’s back on the table.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think I could be competitive,” she says.

When news broke in November 2024 of Vonn’s return to the team, I texted her close friend, Claire Abbe Biesemeyer. Is she OK? Why come back to something that had cost her so much when she’d already built such a strong post-race career?

“This is what truly makes her happy. She loves skiing. She loves competing,” Biesemeyer said. “I was a little surprised at first, but seeing her back on snow, I get it. She wasn’t ready to retire when she did. Her body feels the best it has in years, so she’s giving it one more run in Cortina.”

Biesemeyer knows the reaction hasn’t all been applause. “She’s been getting raised eyebrows and comments like, ‘Wow, doesn’t she have something better to do?’ But women are allowed to make their own choices. People keep asking her why, and she just keeps showing them.”

That resolve—doing it because she can, because it brings her joy—has shaped the meaning of this comeback. “Since I started last year, my perspective has shifted a little bit,” says Vonn. “It’s more meaningful than I ever expected, in the sense that so many women are really behind me and supporting me. It sets the tone for what women can do in their forties. Sports are sometimes a conduit for change, and hopefully, we continue to change the perspective of what women can do in general.”

That change is happening, if unevenly. Serena Williams came back at 36 from a life-threatening childbirth to reach four Grand Slam finals. Simone Biles returned to gymnastics at 26—an age when most Olympic gymnasts have retired—after stepping away at her prime to protect her mental health. Swimmer Dara Torres won Olympic silver at 41, becoming the oldest female Olympic swimmer in history. Each, in her own way, stretched the timeline of what’s possible. Yet longevity still reads as masculine terrain. Men are celebrated for defying time, while women are expected to fade away gracefully.

Vonn refuses that. And while her defiance doesn’t cancel time or mortality, for the athletes watching her—from the World Cup circuit to her own team—it’s proof there’s no set timeline, no fixed rules, and no expectation to fade quietly.

“What a time to have Lindsey come back to the team,” says Wiles. “Any time you’re around someone with that kind of success, it inspires everybody and pushes the team to be better.”

Wiles and Vonn are both teammates and competitors, but the dynamic is more uplifting than rivalrous. “The best teams are the ones that support each other and build each other up together,” Wiles says.

When she first heard Vonn was returning, Wiles was stunned. “It was like, oh my God, it’s really happening. This is crazy. Nobody’s ever come back from being away that long. This is cool!”

Like Vonn, Wiles’s career has been defined by resilience. Just before the 2018 Olympics, she crashed and suffered a broken leg, torn ligaments, and nerve damage. She watched the Games from Vonn’s home in Vail, where Vonn connected her with surgeons and physical therapists.

“Having watched her persevere so many times gave me the belief that, of course, I can do it,” Wiles says.

After nearly two years of recovery and setbacks, Wiles says she’s skiing better than ever. With the 2026 Winter Olympics approaching in February in Cortina—where she once shared a podium with Vonn—she hopes to be back alongside her mentor. “I think she’s going to be a huge contender and fighter all season long,” Wiles says. “There’s no doubt in my mind that she wants to go for gold.”

I will do the best I can with the cards that I’m dealt, and hopefully I’ll get a little luck.

In the fall of 2025, Vonn’s days were packed with five-hour gym sessions, long bike rides, and double workouts stacked with recovery. Speed skiers need it all—strength, power, endurance, and the ability to withstand G-forces in their bodies. She trained in Chile, then Los Angeles, with brief breaks only for recovery and media.

“The majority of the day I’m doing something for my body in some way,” she says. “It’s a lot, but I’m training in a smarter way than before. Athletes now have so many tools available to them that I didn’t have before. I think you’ll see the longevity of athletes getting longer because of how we can recover and come back from injuries.”

Winninger has watched all of it. “She really has put a tremendous amount of work in—not only to rehab this knee replacement, but to build back strength and power to meet the demands of the sport,” she says. “Discipline in that top one percent of athletes does look different … she is unique in that way.”

Training at race speed isn’t only about technique; it’s also cardiovascular, requiring athletes to buffer lactic acid and make split-second decisions while their heart rates are near maximum. Once the season begins, every workout and repetition is about giving herself the best chance to make the right move in the moment.

Vonn’s coach, Svindal, says people often underestimate her record. Because she won so often, it’s easy to assume it came easily. “It’s never easy. She fought for all those victories,” he says. “Success in Cortina would be one of the best stories ever in winter sports.”

With the start of the World Cup season, ski racing again reveals itself as a high-speed game of chess—no two races are the same, and hundredths of a second decide medals.

“You could get one gust of wind and your Olympic dreams are over,” Vonn says. “It’s not easy to win when you’re expected to win. But I will do the best I can with the cards that I’m dealt, and hopefully I’ll get a little luck.”

That unpredictability makes her comeback all the more remarkable. “She’s the most successful speed skier ever,” says Svindal. “She doesn’t need to make a comeback. She wants to. This comeback is a testament to her love for the sport.”

That drive, Vonn says, comes from her family. “We don’t give up, we don’t quit,” she recalls. “We keep working hard.”

But this comeback isn’t about validation. “I’ve already won,” she says. “No matter what happens, I’ll be happy. I got on the podium at 40 years old without having raced in six years. I think it’s already been a massive success. That’s always been my mentality: I’ll leave it all on the mountain, and we’ll see what happens.”

Whatever the result, Vonn’s return is proof that the body can bend to the point of breaking—but if the spirit remains intact, joy is still worth chasing. In a world that keeps telling women to sit down, she’s done the opposite, reminding us that greatness was never about staying whole, but about the audacity of choosing—again and again—to charge through the gate.

This article is from the Winter 2025 issue of Outside magazine. To receive the print magazine, become an Outside+ member here.