We don’t cover professional skiing all that much here at The Adventure Blog, but this past weekend we saw the end of one of the most storied careers in the history of the sport. A few days back. American Lindsey Vonn announced that she was hanging up her skies, ending her career in no small part due to persistent and chronic knee injuries. Many have called her the greatest female skier of all time, and while she hasn’t been as competitive in recent years as she’s been in the past, she will certainly be missed on the World Cup circuit.
The announcement ended a couple of weeks of speculation about Vonn’s status. Back on January 20 she was unable to complete her final run at a World Cup Super-G event, which led some to believe that her nagging injuries were still causing problems. The 34-year old skier ended the speculation with an Instagram post on Friday, saying that it was time for her to leave the sport that she loves so much. In that post, Vonn said, “”It’s been an emotional 2 weeks making the hardest decision of my life, but I have accepted that I cannot continue ski racing.” She would go on to add, “My body is screaming at me to stop.”
While her career is now combing to an end, Vonn will take part in one final upcoming event before she is officially done. She’ll compete at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Are, Sweden, from Feb. 5 to Feb. 17, which will serve as her brief farewell tour before dropping the curtain on her career. She’s sure to have an amazing reception from fans at that event as she closes out what has been a historic career, which includes an Olympic gold medal in the downhill race in 2010, two gold medals at the 2009 World Championships in the downhill and super-G, a bronze medal at the 2018 Olympics, and four FIS Alpine Ski World Cup overall title in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012.
With the announcement of her retirement, we want to salute Lindsey for being not just an amazing skier, but a fantastic role model and ambassador for her sport too. This is an end of an era, with one of the all-time greats stepping aside.
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