Lindsey Vonn concluded her comeback season at age 40 with a second-place finish in a World Cup super-G race Sunday that was won by Swiss standout Lara Gut-Behrami.
Vonn found her vintage form while flying down the twisting and steep Challenger course at the World Cup finals. The American pumped her ski poles after glancing at the scoreboard as the large crowd roared.
This was Vonn’s first World Cup podium spot since March 15, 2018, when she finished third in a super-G in Are, Sweden. Vonn came out of retirement this season after a partial knee replacement and hopes to make the U.S. Olympic team for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games before retiring for good.
“It’s been a rough season of people saying that I can’t, that I’m too old, that I’m not good enough anymore,” Vonn said. “I think I proved everyone wrong.”
It was Vonn’s 138th career World Cup podium in her 408th World Cup start. She is within one of tying the most starts by a female racer, a mark held by Renate Goetschl of Austria. Vonn’s previous best result during her comeback had been a fourth-place finish in a super-G in Austria in January.
Gut-Behrami finished in a time of 1 minute, 12.35 seconds — beating Vonn by 1.29 seconds — to earn the seasonlong super-G crystal globe by overtaking Italian racer Federica Brignone.
Trailing by five points heading into Sunday’s race, Gut-Behrami found plenty of speed and took some calculated risks to glide through the course. Brignone finished third, 1.33 seconds behind Gut-Behrami.
The final seasonlong super-G standings ended up Gut-Behrami, Brignone and Sofia Goggia of Italy.
On Saturday, Brignone officially clinched the downhill discipline after the race was canceled, along with the overall title.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
This post was originally published on this site