Lindsey Bon skiing the comeback trail

For Lindsay Bonn, it was a passive farewell – the final run of her amazing career at the Sweden Alpine World Ski Championship in 2019. She won almost every major title, from the World Cup Championship to the Olympic medal.

When she is racing, she doesn’t think about achievements: “I think you just have a different perspective. You’re focusing on the next race and performance.

She was fast, reaching speeds of up to 85 mph. She was also fearless and resilient. After a terrible crash, she always came back. However, 2013 was one of her most difficult seasons. Vonn’s right knee was the brunt of a crash in the World Cup Super G, but it was never the same. Her last race day – Bumney and all days she still managed to bring the bronze home.

At 34, Lindsey Vonn retired.

“Skiing has always been my sun, and everything in my life revolved around it. What time I woke up, when I ate, when I went to bed. “And then one day I woke up, but my sun disappeared.”

Ski racing is everything that everything wanted. Her father, a former alpine skier herself, moved his family from Minnesota to Bale, Colorado. Those same slopes she is now looking at from her home in Park City, Utah.

“This is like going wherever I go, you know, regroup my batteries and charge them,” she said. “And the dogs love it.”

After resignation, Bonn holds many of the corporate sponsors who helped him buy homes in Miami and Beverly Hills. She continued to surprise the red carpet, but gave her time to pour into her foundations rather than the race, helping underserved girls achieve their own exercise dreams.

However, the knee continued to get worse. “I couldn’t do what I wanted anymore,” she said. “It was really bad. I couldn’t straighten it completely. I couldn’t stretch it all the way through. So I was just stuck in this semi-condition that caused lower back pain, back pain, neck pain. It wasn’t just my knees.

Knee Replacement – The outside part of her right knee is now titanium.

But she didn’t do it just to get back to skiing. “There’s no need to ski,” she said. “I’m Lindsay. I’m not a skier. I’m a skier. That’s a really big distinction for me, in my mind, for me.”

“Did you know how quickly you could push it then?” I asked.

“It’s getting pretty quick!” she laughed.

In fact, it’s only four months. She took her coach to New Zealand and learned that her new knee is her old sport. “It was such a dramatic difference, so if I could do all of these things that hurt me before, where would it take me? And my mind starts wandering.”

And where is she? Returning to the US ski teamhoping to compete on another trip to the Olympics: Italy 2026.

“I’m at a disadvantage,” Bonn said. “I’m 40 and next year I’ll be 41. But I know my skiing is there. I think I’m actually skiing more than in the last few years of my career.”

She admits that she has some well-meaning ribs. “That’s true. There’s one girl who calls me Grandma. I’m not exactly grateful!

She knew she had some eyebrows raised, but she got more than that Among the critics who go as far as they question her sanity. “The last few weeks have been tough,” she posted on Instagram last month. “I know they’re just a few voices from a lot of people…but that still hurts.”

She told us, “What I didn’t expect was people criticize me as a person, why am I doing it, and I said I can’t handle life outside of ski racing.”

She dismisses most of it and chooses to be smarter and more clever and focus on training. “I’m not preparing for another decade of my skiing career,” she said. “I’m literally preparing for two races for a year.”

She is on hold for the rest of her life for now – a single goal requires a single focus, just like making her banana bread. And it has a purpose: “I need to put on weight, man,” she said. “I’m about 20 pounds less than I used to race.”

The brand of resolve comes from her mom, Lindy Rand, she says. “She would have given her anything to play tennis, squash, ride a bike, but she couldn’t,” Bonn said.

Her mother suffered a stroke in 1984 while pregnant with Lindsay. It was debilitating, but she became a soldier without complaints. When she was diagnosed with ALS (formerly known as Lugelig’s disease), she was not about to give up like her daughter. “She thought she could beat the odds. She could live another 20 years, and she continued it,” Bonn said. “Man, that was tough. I still have her number on my phone. I still messaged her.”

She said her mom hopes she will fly high again, even though getting another downhill would be a difficult battle. For sports measured in 1/100th of a second, the difference between the first and last is very small. However, in this second go-around, Lindsay Von takes his time to taste the views as much as he chases.

“The fact that I’m talking about going to the Olympics right now is something I never thought I’d ever do,” she said. “And so I’ve already won!”

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A story created by Michelle Kessel. Editor: Joseph Frandino.

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