“It’s been an emotional 2 weeks making the hardest decision of my life, but I have accepted that I cannot continue ski racing. I will compete at the World Championships in Downhill and SG (super-G) next week in Are, Sweden and they will be the final races of my career,” Lindsey Vonn had written on Instagram announcing her retirement on February 1, 2019.

“My body is broken beyond repair and it isn’t letting me have the final season I dreamed of. My body is screaming at me to STOP and it’s time for me to listen.” Vonn’s right knee was permanently damaged from previous crashes. The American also had torn ACLs, suffered fractures near her left knee, broken her ankle, sliced her right thumb, had a concussion, and whatnot. But she was not lost in oblivion.

Lindsey kept herself active by doing flyboarding, wakeboarding, and playing tennis. But for someone who has picked up 82 World Cup wins, 20 World Cup titles, 3 Olympic medals, and 7 World Championship medals on the snow, nothing can take over the excitement of swishing across the whites. “You work hard, you do the right thing, and when you’re in the start gate, you just want to go fast. I missed that,” Lindsey said in an interview with the BBC. So what did she do?

In April last year, Vonn had a robot-assisted replacement performed by Martin Roche, a South Florida-based orthopedist specializing in complex knee disorders. Part of the bone in her right knee was cut off and replaced by two titanium pieces. A month later, she was already planning her comeback. And look at her grit, even at 40!

Last month, Vonn finished 14th in her comeback race in St. Moritz, Switzerland, then improved to sixth and fourth in her next two races in St. Anton. That joy of steadying up toward the World Cup’s crystal ball trophy, however, once again faced a setback on January 16. Vonn suffered a crash approaching the final section of her opening training run at the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in Cortina d’Ampezzo. Did she read the writing after it? After the crash, Vonn exclusively talked to AP on January 17 and made a surprising announcement. She said that she would retire from skiing after the next Olympic competition. “I would never go past that. It would be a great way to end things—for once and for all.”

“I don’t know if it’s possible. I have to stay on my feet, unlike today. I have to keep thing’s going and if I can make it, it would be a thrilling and a great way to kind of close the loop on my career — I guess the second chapter of my career. But I’m really trying not to think that far ahead. I have to stick with what’s on today and tomorrow and just kind of building and getting everything dialed in. But I definitely am thinking about it and I hope that I can get there,” Vonn added about the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games. Notably, Cortina is the spot where a month before her 2019 retirement, she had her final World Cup race that ended in tears because of knee pain. But the irony is it has given Vonn a lot.

She holds the record with 12 World Cup wins in Cortina — 6 downhill and 6 super-G. Cortina was also where Vonn earned her first career World Cup podium back in 2004, and where in 2015 she broke Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s 35-year-old record of 62 World Cup wins across all disciplines. Choosing Cortina to say the final goodbye to the sport indeed brings her remarkable career to a full circle, Vonn can attest to that.

“I’ve had so many great memories here,” Vonn said. “I think probably the two most meaningful was my first podium, which started this roll of confidence. … It’s when everything clicked for me in downhill. And then obviously breaking the women’s win record.” But looks like Lindsey will also remember Cortina for the hardships she faced here during her comeback to the skiing spot. Just two days after talking about retirement, she again had a heartbreak there.

Lindsey Vonn needs “more time” to get back to her usual self

After crashing in the training run and finishing 20th on January 18’s downhill, Vonn failed to finish the Super G World Cup event on the next day. She lost balance on her inside left ski shortly after the second checkpoint, where she trailed leader Federica Brignone by just half a second. “I was skiing really well,” she later explained to reporters. “I definitely made some mistakes on the top, but I got a little bit behind the course and tried to pull it off. Then my skis kind of clicked together and I lost my balance.”

She rose to her feet moments later, visibly frustrated as she struck the snow with her ski pole, before skiing down the Olympia delle Tofane slope amid warm applause from the crowd. But despite an initial feeling of disappointment,  Vonn being Vonn, prefers to focus on what is in store: “I think in general this weekend was really positive, but I couldn’t quite put it together. I think it’s going to take a little time, you know? I think last weekend went so well that everyone’s expectations were really high.”

Vonn, who celebrated her 400th World Cup start, stated that she wanted to take a day-by-day approach: “This is a journey that no one’s taken before. So I’m trying to be patient. I need more training. I need more time. And I think it’s actually kind of a good thing that I didn’t do well this weekend because it leaves me really hungry for more and also hopefully for next year. You know, I know that I need to make improvements. I don’t have really any training and there’s a lot of room for improvement.” Vonn is scheduled to race the downhill and Super G on January 26 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.