SUN VALLEY, Idaho — When Lindsey Vonn first heard this year’s World Cup finals were going to be in the United States, it made her a little sad.
She’d had so few opportunities to do speed races in the United States, let alone in a World Cup finals. Now that there was one, she was retired.
“I was like, `I really would’ve loved to race there,’” Vonn said Friday before breaking into a grin. “And lo and behold, I’m here racing.”
Vonn was forced to retire in the middle of the 2019 season, the pain from her many injuries over the years no longer tolerable. But after a partial knee replacement last April left her pain free for the first time in years, she came out of retirement, determined to end her career on her terms.
She returned to the World Cup circuit in December and qualified for the finals in both the downhill and super-G. The downhill is Saturday and the super-G is Sunday.
At 40, Vonn will be the oldest woman to compete at the World Cup finals.
“I think there’s just an expectation of, especially women at a certain age, you need to be doing a certain thing, and I don’t believe in that at all,” Vonn said. “I think you’re only limited to what you push yourself to do.
“If you feel good, if you mentally have the drive, there’s no reason why you should stop doing what you love to do,” she added. “The reason why I stopped before was because my body wasn’t working. And now that my body’s working again, my mind is able to do what it wants to do. Which is go fast.”
Vonn is one of the greatest ski racers of all times. Her three Olympic medals include gold in the downhill at the Vancouver Games in 2010, and her 82 World Cup victories are third behind only Mikaela Shiffrin (100) and Ingemar Stenmark (86).
Though she has yet to make the podium in her return, she’s had two top-10 finishes. One of those was a fourth-place finish in the super-G in St. Anton, Austria, where she missed the podium by 0.32 seconds.
Vonn came into the World Cup finals ranked 17th in super-G and 19th in the downhill.
“I learned that I haven’t forgotten anything. It’s like riding a bike,” she said. “I know exactly what I need to do, and everything came back very quickly.
“What surprised me was more the fact that my equipment would take so long to figure out. I kind of underestimated that challenge,” Vonn added. “But the sport hasn’t changed that much since I left. So for me, I just have to figure out my equipment and I think I’ll be in a good place.”
Vonn has said she wants to ski through the Milan-Cortina Olympics next year, which is fitting.
The women’s alpine races will be held in Cortina, one of Vonn’s favorite venues. It’s where she made her first World Cup podium, finishing third in the downhill in 2004, and she got 12 of her 82 World Cup wins there. She made the podium another seven times in Cortina, too.
But that’s next season. For now, Vonn is savoring being back at the World Cup finals for the first time since 2018, when she won the downhill and was third in the super-G.
“Finals are always fun,” she said, “so it’s nice to be back.”
The fans who came out to watch training Friday at Sun Valley Resort greeted Vonn enthusiastically, cheering throughout her run and kids shouting her name as she did interviews in the finish area.
It was a bit of a full circle moment for Vonn, who has talked often of being inspired by meeting Picabo Street when she was a young girl. Now she’s closing out her career in the United States in Street’s hometown, in an event she never imagined being at not that long ago.
“This is maybe my last chance to race at home in my lifetime,” Vonn said, “and I’m going to enjoy it.”
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.