Lindsey Vonn vows to be back on skis real soon. How soon? Vonn expects to make a few turns this week in training runs in Austria.
Despite coming off two serious knee injuries, the decorated U.S. skier expects to get into training mode soon and be ready for the 2014-15 World Cup season. She plans to begin racing in December and is hoping to enter the three-race competition at Lake Louise in Canada, a hill where she has won 14 times in the past.
Vonn, who will be 30 in October, returns to the snow after a relaxing spring and summer. She spent considerable time with golfer Tiger Woods, another athlete who has been injured in what should have been his prime. Vonn tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee Feb. 5, 2013.
“A lot of people don’t think I will be back,” Vonn told the New York Times. “That’s fine. The other girls are probably feeling pretty comfortable without me out there. When I do come back I think they’ll see that they (other skiers) can’t be comfortable anymore.”
Vonn hasn’t skied in 10 months. She plans on being very cautious in training. Besides returning this year, Vonn admits the look-range plan is another Olympic performance, which would be her fourth – the first one came in 2002.
The 2018 Winter Olympics are in South Korea.
“I need to have another chance to defend my Olympic gold medal in the downhill,” Vonn said. “I knew that in January as soon as I mentally accepted that I couldn’t race in the Sochi Olympics. I want another chance to compete.”
The second ACL injury was more severe than the first, causing significant damage to menisci on either side of the joint. Dr. James Andrews cautioned Vonn that she had to be extremely careful in getting the knee back to full strength.
