{"id":792904,"date":"2019-02-10T17:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/lindsey-vonn-wins-bronze-medal-in-final-race-of-her-career\/"},"modified":"2019-02-10T17:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T00:20:00","slug":"lindsey-vonn-wins-bronze-medal-in-final-race-of-her-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/lindsey-vonn-wins-bronze-medal-in-final-race-of-her-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindsey Vonn wins bronze medal in final race of her career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Bronze medalist Lindsey Vonn celebrates after the women’s downhill race, at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden on Sunday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vail\u2019s Lindsey Vonn summoned greatness, seizing the stage, the world\u2019s attention and turning back the hands of time one last time to win the bronze medal in downhill in the final appearance of her career at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Are, Sweden, on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Battered and bruised with both knees aching, Vonn finished her legendary career with elation and one last trip to the podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI laid it all on the line. That\u2019s all I wanted to do today,\u201d Vonn told The Associated Press. \u201cI have to admit I was a little bit nervous, probably the most nervous I\u2019ve ever been in my life. I wanted to finish strong so badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

And among family, friends and fans at the finish, Sweden\u2019s Ingemar Stemark was there to greet her. They are the two winningest ski racers of all time \u2014 Stenmark with 86 career World Cup wins and Vonn 82.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that I could finish strong. I\u2019m happy there are so many people here,\u201d Vonn said. \u201cI wish my mom and my brother and my sister could be here, but half the family is here so that\u2019s good. I soaked it all in. I waved to the crowd one last time. Ingemar being in the finish area was literally the best thing that\u2019s ever happened in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vonn started third on Sunday and was in familiar territory early \u2014 in green numbers on the scoreboard. She took over the lead from Germany\u2019s Viktoria Rebensburg. Vonn stayed on the hot seat for six racers until Slovenia\u2019s Ilka Stuhec, the eventual winner, took over.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Stuhec was recovering from her own knee injury and ended up defending her World Championship from 2017 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. And Vonn politely crashed one of Stuhec\u2019s television interviews with a hug and congratulations.<\/p>\n

Stuhec finished in 1 minute, 1.74 seconds, with Switzerland\u2019s Corinne Suter (23-hundredths of a second back), followed by Vonn (49-hundredths). And while Stuhec won, Sunday was a celebration of Vonn\u2019s career, including a moment with now-Eurosport journalist and former rival Tina Maze.<\/p>\n

Vail\u2019s Mikaela Shiffrin tweeted out her congratulations, writing \u201cBig congrats to Lindsey Vonn for a final perfect run.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the numbers<\/p>\n

Sunday was Vonn\u2019s eighth Worlds medal. She finishes with two gold medals \u2014 both in Val d\u2019Isere, France in 2009 in downhill and super-G \u2014 three silvers and three bronzes at the biennial event. Along with gold (2010 downhill) and two bronzes at the Olympics, there isn\u2019t much Vonn hasn\u2019t done during her 18-year career.<\/p>\n

The 82 World Cup wins are a well-known figure, but she also has 137 podiums on tour and 214 top 10 finishes. Her 43 wins in downhill alone would place her sixth on the women\u2019s all-time World Cup win list ahead of Sweden\u2019s Anja Parson, another of her former rivals. Fun fact \u2014 before Vonn, the American women\u2019s record for most downhill wins was nine, held by Picabo Street, one of Lindsey\u2019s idols growing up.<\/p>\n

Those 43 downhill wins are a record, regardless of gender, as are her 28 super-G triumphs.<\/p>\n

Her four World Cup championship globes are an American record. Her eight downhill season wins are a world record. Her 20 total globes \u2014 four overall; eight in downhill; five in super-G and three in combined \u2014 are also tops on the planet.<\/p>\n

Vonn won 18 times at Lake Louise, Alberta, which in skiing parlance is called Lake Lindsey. Yet Vonn conquered a bunch of other iconic venues on tour:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Cortina, Italy: 11 World Cup wins.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Garmisch, Germany: Nine wins.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Val d\u2019Isere, France: Seven World Cup wins and two worlds titles in 2009.<\/p>\n

Plaudits<\/p>\n

Accolades poured in after Sunday\u2019s race, according to AP.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has a reach that goes beyond just racing and that\u2019s something that everyone involved in skiing should be grateful for,\u201d said Norwegian great Aksel Lund Svindal. (By the way, like Vonn, Svindal retired after a silver medal during Saturday\u2019s downhill.)<\/p>\n

Bode Miller: \u201cThere are so many different ways to measure the best of all time and she basically checks every category, winning or being very strong in all five disciplines. Her wins speak for themselves, her longevity, her personality, and her everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

And from tennis, Billie Jean King: \u201cYou are a true champion who never quit. Be well, Lindsey, and know that you have given your fans, and most importantly, the next generation of skiers, the gifts of perseverance, athleticism, bravery, and fighting spirit! Here\u2019s to the next chapter!\u201d<\/p>\n

No regrets<\/p>\n

As with any racer, the injuries pile up, and, in some ways, Vonn\u2019s bill came due a little more than six years ago with a horrific crash at the worlds super-G in Schladming, Austria, on Feb. 5, 2013. She did her right ACL, her MCL and fractured her tibial plateau.<\/p>\n

She tried coming back for the 2014 Olympics in Russia but reinjured whatever was left of her right knee.<\/p>\n

That would have been a career-ender for most, but Vonn ended up winning 23 more times on the World Cup, including five victories last season. Ironically, her last career win came at World Cup finals in Are last March in downhill.<\/p>\n

During preseason training, she injured her left knee and was skiing with two knee braces during her latest comeback.<\/p>\n

After Sunday\u2019s race, she said to AP that she \u201cpushed through the pain one last time,\u201d and that bronze was \u201cthe best I could have done today\u201d because \u201cthere\u2019s not another gear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vonn added that she will undergo knee surgery for the seventh time when she returns to the United States.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bronze medalist Lindsey Vonn celebrates after the women’s downhill race, at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden on Sunday. Vail\u2019s Lindsey Vonn summoned greatness, seizing the stage, the world\u2019s attention and turning back the hands of time one last time to win the bronze medal in downhill in the final appearance of her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-792904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 18:11:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}