In 2002, a 17-year-old girl from St. Paul, Minnesota, exited the starting gate and raced in her first Winter Olympics on home soil. Now, 23 years later, that same girl is one of the most accomplished U.S. Alpine skiers of all time, with the opportunity to bring her historic career full circle.
Returning from a six-year retirement, Lindsey Vonn plans to make her way back to the Winter Olympics for the fifth time in her illustrious career. Announcing her return to international skiing competition in November 2024, Vonn began competing in events on the 2024-25 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup calendar.
Though she did not reach the podium at the world championships, Vonn finished runner-up in the women’s super-G during the FIS Ski World Cup Finals at Sun Valley, her first podium finish in over 2,500 days.
But before her return to professional skiing, the Olympic medals and any of the towering accolades to follow that line Vonn’s trophy cases, she was ramping up the home fans ahead of her Olympic debut at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
Vonn's Olympic debut in Salt Lake City
Vonn, at age 17, competed in the combined event during the 2002 Games, consisting of one downhill run and two slalom runs (now reduced to one downhill and one slalom run) at Snowbasin Resort in Utah, where she made her World Cup debut just two years prior at the nearby Park City slopes.
While the downhill run typically is done first, Vonn's premier event, it snowed unexpectedly more than usual before the combined events, forcing the two disciplines to swap.
“That was not expected, which I think was good for me because it made me less nervous and more focused on how do I do slalom first instead of downhill,” Vonn said.
Her Olympic debut in the first slalom run of the combined clocked in at 45.95 seconds, the sixth-best run of the round.
“It was flat and steep, and when I came across the flat and over the steep pitch, I felt a wave of the crowd,” Vonn said. “I heard the noise, but I felt the energy and it hit me on my chest. And it was such an amazing feeling because when you're skiing downhill, you're going too fast. You can't really hear the crowd. But in slalom you can hear them very well 'cause you're going pretty slow.”
After completing the second run of the slalom, Vonn let out a double fist pump into the air, skiing to the side of the finish area and putting a cupped hand to her ear to energize the crowd, receiving a roar of approval. As a teenager, Vonn led her fellow American teammates with the top slalom time in the combined from the U.S.
“I was just having fun with it,” Vonn said. “I didn't go into the [Winter] Olympics expecting to win a medal. I was the youngest person on the team. This was an experience expedition. I was not digging for gold, so I was soaking it all up and enjoying it, and it was really an incredible experience.”
The crowd moments weren’t the only memorable moments for Vonn. When it came time for the downhill run, she lost a pretty important piece of equipment: her racing bib.
“I was very panicked about it,” Vonn said. “I honestly don't know how it happened. I don't think that's ever happened to me after that.”
In place of the missing bib, Vonn received a new bib with a drawn-on No. 10 for the downhill.
“That was a bad time to lose your bib, but I think also it was one of those things, again, that distracted me a little bit and let me focus on the bib instead of focusing on the skiing,” Vonn said.
With a scribbled 'No. 10' in black marker, Vonn flew down the hill for her first-ever downhill run at the Olympics. She clocked a 1:16.61 on the Snowbasin downhill course, the fourth-fastest time in the competition, the fastest U.S. time and 0.61 seconds behind the eventual women's combined gold medalist Janica Kostelic.
“I've been to quite a few Olympics and I think that was the loudest I've ever heard a crowd crossing the finish line in my career, which was kind of tough as your first Olympics. It was all downhill from there,” Vonn said laughingly.
The impressive downhill run for the 17-year-old gave her the sixth-fastest time in the combined. Around four seconds behind her was teammate Julia Mancuso, who eventually would grab gold in the 2006 super-G competition at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, and silver twice at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics - including the downhill - the event in which Vonn won her famed gold medal.
Looking ahead to the 2026 Milan Cortina Games
The chance to compete in Milan Cortina in 2026 is meaningful for Vonn, who cited Cortina as one of her favorite places of all time. She accomplished several memorable feats in the Dolomites, including her first World Cup podium, a third-place downhill finish at the Cortina Classic in 2004.
A dozen years later in Cortina, she captured her 63rd women’s World Cup win in the super-G, passing Austria’s Annemarie Moser-Proll for the most all-time (she now holds the second most behind Mikaela Shiffrin).
Almost a decade since passing the all-time record, Vonn hopes to return to the town where she started her World Cup career and made history in women’s Alpine skiing. The downhill and super-G races will be held on the same Olympia delle Tofane course that is a regular stop on the World Cup circuit and host of the 2021 World Championships.
“It would be symbolic, to say the least, if I could kind of close my career in Cortina,” Vonn said. “When I'm on the mountain in Cortina, it just feels natural. Everything comes to me. I know where the fall line is. I know exactly how to ski and when to ski it. It's like second nature. It's like home.”