When Lindsey Vonn last raced at the Olympics in 2018, she did so with one set of initials adorning her helmet -- D.K. -- for her paternal grandfather, Don Kildow, who died three months before those Games.
In Vonn's comeback from a five-year retirement, she now skis with seven letters on her helmet: D. S. F. B. L. L. E. One letter each for seven loved ones she lost over the last nine years, including two in 2025: Lucy, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel and travel companion for nine years, and Erich Sailer (SY-ler), her childhood coach at Buck Hill Ski and Snowboard Area overlooking Interstate 35 just south of Minneapolis.
"My angel army has grown đź’”," she posted in August.
Vonn said in late October she plans to race the entire 2025-26 season -- her last, including a fifth and final Olympics -- with those letters on her helmet.
At her first World Cup stop of the season, Vonn posted the fastest downhill training run Wednesday -- with the initials on her helmet, her rep confirmed -- before downhill races Friday and Saturday and a super-G on Sunday in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
In discussing the helmet, she thought of one of her seven angels: her mom, Linda, who died in August 2022 as Vonn held her hand, one year after Linda was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
"When my mom had ALS, someone told her that if you can no longer raise your arms, it means that the disease has taken over," Vonn said. "So she would raise her arms every day and say, 'Today is another great day.' So that's my perspective. That's what the initials just remind me (of). I have to really live my life to the best of my ability, never take anything for granted, and I will be happy if I can do those things."
One of the ways Linda set an example for Vonn was through her toughness. As Vonn described in her 2022 memoir, "Rise," which she dedicated to her mom:
"On October 17, 1984, my mother went to the emergency room at 10:30 p.m. for a very bad headache," she wrote. "Four hours later, she suffered what doctors would later determine was a stroke, and I was born by an emergency cesarian. In a coma, my mother was given a 50-50 chance of surviving."
Linda had four more kids after Lindsey, including a set of triplets. When Vonn moved to Vail at age 11 to advance her budding ski career, her mom went with her. She wrote that Linda "made such a terrible, tremendous sacrifice just giving birth to me, who’d driven from Minnesota to Colorado, eighteen hours each way, so I could ski, and who’d spent the next 25 years surrendering whatever she had left for the good of my career, for the good of us kids, for the good of our family."
In a group chat among Vonn, her siblings and their mom, Linda wrote daily poems and regularly shared positive affirmations.
“My mom is tough as nails,” Vonn said in 2020. “She just has always been kind of one of those silent, tough mothers that you could always lean on for advice."
In addition to Don, Lucy, Erich and Linda, the angel army includes her grandmother, Shirley. When a young Vonn raced, Shirley couldn't bear to watch. She "would hold on to Grandpa’s hand tight, close her eyes, and pray for me to come down safely," Vonn wrote after Shirley's death in 2022.
"F" on her helmet is for Uncle Frank. He fought multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, for a decade, including extreme chemotherapy with stints of isolation for up to six months, Vonn wrote in a tribute after his 2016 passing.
"B" is for Bear, part chow and part retriever, who passed in 2022 due to cancer in his heart. Vonn had adopted Bear seven years earlier from a foster family.
"He was fiercely protective of me, my shadow wherever I went," she wrote. "He was loving and also incredibly smart, always getting into trouble. When I was injured he was the first one to lay by my side. When I cried he was always there to snuggle."
Vonn shared the image of her helmet on Instagram on Aug. 20 after Sailer died at age 99. When a young Vonn was urged to change her skiing technique, Sailer disagreed.
“You’re fast the way you are,” she penned in the memoir. “That’s the best piece of advice he ever gave me.”
In a tribute to Sailer, Vonn wrote that she "will try to make my last turns in ski racing fast for you."
"I have a lot of people, unfortunately, upstairs helping me," Vonn said. "In life, and especially in sports, sometimes you need a little luck. I think all of those people who have helped me in my life, who have loved me, I think they'll give me a little bit of luck for these Olympics."