Lindsey Vonn Will Be Chasing History
If last month's race in Solden, Austria is of any indication, the 2015 Alpine Skiing World Cup will be exciting to watch.
Germany's Maria Höfl-Riesch announced her retirement after her last race in Lenzerheide, Switzerland last March. Slovenia's Tina Maze, the 2013 overall winner, might retire after this season. Mikaela Shiffrin, the reigning Olympic, World Cup, and world champion in slalom, might win the overall title. Then there's Lindsey Vonn, the four-time overall champion, who is attempting to surpass Annemarie Moser-Proell's record for the most World Cup race victories. Fans won't see her in Levi, Finland, the next stop of the competition. She plans to compete in Lake Louise, Canada next week. The Canadian Rockies is where she won 14 of her 59 races.
"I think Lake Louise is the perfect place for me to start," said Vonn, who turned 30 last month.
Two years ago, Vonn was looking forward to defend her World Cup overall title. But injury struck her during the 2013 World Championship. She had surgery during the offseason, even managed to have a few races under her belt months after. She wanted to defend her downhill title at Sochi, but her knee gave in.
“I don’t regret anything I did last year; I felt awesome and I was healed,” Vonn said. “I wouldn’t change anything. It was just a very unfortunate turn of events.”
She'll be 33 in 2018, which the next Winter Olympics will be staged. She believes she's not yet too old to compete against the younger skiers.
Hometown win
Next year's world championship will be held in Vali, Colorado. She lives nearby, so she can hardly wait.
“I’ve been waiting for the world championships to be in the United States for basically my entire career. I’m very much looking forward to it, and my friends and family will all be there, and of course the hometown crowd so hopefully I can pull something out of my hat for everyone,” she said.
She's preparing for the circuit by training in the Austrian slopes. Unlike last year, she's more cautious. She's might enter in the races in Aspen at the end of the month. It can be the perfect venue for a comeback, as she'll ski in front of hometown fans. But nothing is final yet.
Austria's Anna Fenninger, the defending champion, had a good start by winning the giant slalom race at Solden. Shiffrin tied her for the fastest time, sending a message to the other skiers that she has loftier objectives this season. Roland Pfeifer, the United States ski team’s women’s technical coach, thinks Shiffrin can beat anyone in any discipline.
“Definitely she can beat Vonn, especially in the technical super-Gs like Beaver Creek. If Mikaela didn’t think she had a chance to win, we would not start racing super-G now,” he said.
But all eyes are on Vonn, who wants to be remembered as the greatest alpine skier ever.
