What a comeback for Lindsey Vonn! After the beauty of 2,132 days since her last race, the American champion returned to the starting gate of the superG of Sankt Moritz (Switzerland) valid for the women's Alpine skiing World Cup 2024-2025, achieving a truly surprising fourteenth place, also considering that she came down with bib no. 31 and, of course, the track was no longer in impeccable condition.
The qualities of the 82-time World Cup winner certainly cannot be doubted, but at 40 years old, and after 5 years of inactivity, this result is truly sensational. There's no point in going around it. Furthermore, from what we saw on the “Corviglia” track, Lindsey Vonn can also eat her hands a little. For what reason? It proved to be fast and effective in several sections, while in others it seemed to go down a bit too much with the handbrake on.
At the start, for example, the feeling was that Vonn had preferred to take measures with the track, without pushing hard. Then he skied hard, setting the fourth time in the second intermediate and the fifth in the lower part. Analyzing meter by meter, with stopwatch in hand, the performance of the native of St. Paul (Minnesota), almost all of her 1.18 which she paid at the finish line, arrived in two points: the high one and the one before the final stretch.
In the initial section, in fact, the American suffered the beauty of 52 cents from Cornelia Huettermaking it absolutely one of the slowest of the group. From then on, however, he showed off an exceptional section in which he left just 3 hundredths, arriving at the second intermediate stage 55 hundredths from the top. Just as it seemed ready to change gear like in the old days, however, in the most conducive section of the Swiss track, left another 54 cents in a few doorsbefore a once again excellent finish with less than a tenth left compared to the best.
Raise your hand if you could have expected a similar return for Lindsey Vonn! You will be able to reply tomorrow to seek confirmation, with the knowledge that the podium is not far away at all. Is a return to the top 3 possible? Who knows, maybe in January on the beloved Cortina d'Ampezzo track…
