ST MORITZ (Reuters) – American skiing great Lindsey Vonn marked her return to the World Cup circuit for the first time in nearly six years by finishing 14th fastest in the super-G at St Moritz, Switzerland, on Saturday.
Vonn, a three-times Olympic medallist and four-times overall World Cup champion with 82 wins, had walked away from the sport in 2019 after a bruising 18-year career where she suffered several injuries.
But last month she announced that she was coming out of retirement at the age 40 to rejoin the U.S. ski team having returned to training following a successful knee surgery earlier this year.
Vonn was the 31st skiier out the gate and she displayed the rhythm and flow of old that had made her the most successful super-G skier of all time with 28 World Cup wins.
But despite skiing on a slope she was very familiar with, she was well off the pace , finishing 1.18 seconds off leader Cornelia Huetter of Austria who set a time of one minute and 15.18 seconds.
Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami was second-fastest (0.18 seconds behind), while Italian Sofia Goggia was third (0.33).
However, Vonn was all smiles after crossing the finish line as she soaked in the applause from the crowd. She was then busy relaying details of the course through a radio to her compatriots yet to race.
Vonn said last week that she felt stronger than she did in her late 20s, especially after having bone in her knee replaced with titanium which allowed her to straighten her right leg completely for the first time in years.
A second super-G will be held in St Moritz on Sunday.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; editing by Pritha Sarkar)
