After facing criticism, setbacks, and the challenges of a knee replacement, Lindsey Vonn will finally represent the red, white, and blue at the 2026 Winter Olympics. For any sportsperson to come out of retirement and make a comeback after eight years is a remarkable feat. And Vonn is now looking back at the moment when she sat in an interview, oblivious to the fact that nine months later, she’d secure the Olympic berth she was once dreaming about.

Lindsey Vonn’s 80% podium rate leads all racers about one-third of the way through the 2025-26 campaign. That’s how good she has been this year. And this is exactly everything she was dreaming of achieving back in March 2025. Vonn recently reshared an old interview on her Instagram story, where she revealed her honest feelings about making it to the Olympics: “Honestly, if I make it to the Olympics, that’ll be already a success.”

And 9 months later, she did make it. She is now preparing for her fifth Olympic Games. Something she thought in March was a job that female athletes simply don’t do at this age. “I don’t believe any female woman has raced in the Olympics past like 34….”

In case you don’t know, her last Olympic medal came in 2018, when she was 34, already considered a ‘senior’ in the sport. While athletes like Jenny Owens (35 at the 2014 Winter Olympics) and Michaela Dorfmeister (32 at the 2006 Turin Olympics) have competed at older ages, Vonn’s 41 sets a new benchmark in women’s alpine skiing.

But Vonn also wanted people to understand something bigger. “I think for a number of reasons, not that women can’t do it, but because at a certain age, I think there’s a certain expectation that we should retire and have kids and be at home.”

After retiring in 2019, she spoke about her future outside the slopes with then-partner P.K. Subban. When Vonn was asked her if kids were part of their plan, Vonn replied, “We’re thinking about it.” She also said at that time, “I can’t wait to go skiing with my kids one day.”

Back then, marriage and family seemed like the next chapter. But life, as it does, changed course. And Vonn changed with it. Now, she hopes her return becomes a turning point for other women who feel pressured to shrink their dreams with age.

As she said, “And I think societal expectations are changing. And I hope that this allows women to continue to follow their dreams no matter what their age, and not give up on themselves and not let other people’s expectations of them dictate where they want to go in life. And so I think just making it will be a success.”

And Lindsey Vonn has also made it clear that she is happy being single. She has said enough times that her life doesn’t need a relationship to feel complete. But family? That door isn’t closed. She has frozen her eggs; it seems that kids could still be part of her future when she feels ready, not when society expects her to.

But before we talk about what she might do next, let’s look at what she has already done… the achievements that made the world fall in love with her skiing in the first place.

The legend of Lindsey Vonn

Lindsey Vonn already achieved what many skiers only dream of. She won gold in downhill and bronze in Super-G at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Later, she added another bronze in downhill at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and much more. But what is more interesting is that she remains the only American woman to ever win Olympic downhill gold.

But the road after 2018 was brutal on her body. When she announced her retirement in February 2019, she opened up with heartbreaking honesty. “My body is broken beyond repair and it isn’t letting me have the final season I dreamed of,” Vonn wrote. Years of crashes, torn ligaments, broken bones, and concussions had piled up. She had already gone through nine knee surgeries, and in April 2024, she underwent a partial knee replacement.

Most people thought that was the end of her skiing story. Even Lindsey Vonn believed it, too. She once said she looked forward to the quieter side of life, family, and plans beyond racing. But that knee replacement changed everything. That winter, she returned to competition in St. Moritz, finishing 14th in Super-G. Weeks later, she placed 6th in downhill and 4th in Super-G in St. Anton, Austria.

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Still, Lindsey Vonn’s comeback was unpredictable. The next two months brought DNFs and finishes in the teens and 20s. It felt uncertain. But quitting was never her mind. She kept pushing, kept showing up, kept fighting. Then came a big moment. A third-place finish in Super-G at Val d’Isere marked her 142nd podium. It also made one thing clear: she was finding her form again.

“It was very important to me that I qualified based on my performance and results this season, and not based on what was done in the past,” she said. “My skiing had to earn this spot, and I’m proud to have done that.” She added, “My skiing had to earn this spot, and I’m proud to have done that.”

Lindsey Vonn’s new standings proved her point. She now sits No. 1 in downhill and No. 3 in Super-G in the FIS World Cup rankings. But after the Olympics? She intended to retire but not anymore. Vonn has changed the script again.

“I thought I would for sure be retiring on Feb. 12 (after the super-G at the Olympics). But I’ll keep racing this season, the way things are going. Having the World Cup lead in downhill… I definitely hoped to be skiing well, but I had by no means planned that.”

Now, her return carries a bigger meaning. It’s not just about skiing fast. It’s about showing women that age should never be the reason to stop dreaming