this is the place She figured it out. 21 years ago, then 19-year-old Lindsey Vonn took her first podium finish at the 137th World Cup in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and began to believe I can win. By the time she retired in 2019, she had 82 World Cup wins, the third-most by an alpine skier in history.

Now, the three-time Olympic medalist will make an improbable return to competition this weekend in Cortina, the place where she has had so much success in her career and where the 2026 Winter Olympics will begin in just over a year. venue.

"In Cortina, everything clicked," Vaughn, 40, said of the 2004 race. “Before that, my skiing was mediocre at best. Then I figured it out. I figured out the hills. I figured out how to prepare. My preparation hasn’t changed since that first podium. too much."

It was Thursday night, just two months after she announced an unexpected return to the U.S. ski team after a partial right knee replacement. During this afternoon's downhill training - her first in Cortina in six years - Vonn fell near the bottom of the course and slid into the fence. "On my penultimate jump, I took in a lot of air and when I landed my skis got stuck, causing me to lose my balance," she said. "It's not too dramatic. I'm a little bruised, but I'm fine."

Vaughn said she didn't need medical care, if at all, as widely reported, and that she considered the experience a necessary evil. She had her first "real meltdown" since returning to ski racing.

"When you're going 80 miles an hour, things happen," she said. “It feels good to be able to break through the fence and get up and do another thing tomorrow.”

Vonn will compete in the downhill and super-G races in Cortina on Saturday and Sunday, just as she did last weekend in St. Anton, Austria. There, Vonn, worried about her home in Los Angeles and her sister and friends amid the raging wildfires, finished sixth in the downhill and third in the super-G in her second World Cup race back. Four, which surprised even herself. But she insists she has no expectations placed on herself this time around, even in a place as magical to her as Cortina. This time, she approached ski racing differently.

“When I used to compete, my expectation was to win every time and nothing else would be good enough,” she said. "Now, I don't feel that way at all. If I can improve on my last two results at St. Anton, it would be great. But I'm realistic. I'm still not 100 percent, so I just need to To execute and ski the way I know, if I can do that, then I know I can be fast."

15 years Between Vonn's first and last race in Cortina, she won 12 times here, more than any skier in history. In 2015, she won the downhill and super-G, her 62nd and 63rd career victories, and broke the 35-year-old record for most women's Alpine Ski World Cup wins. (American skier Mikaela Shiffrin broke Vonn's record in 2023.)

Despite her stellar history here, Vonn is more like her 19-year-old self these days. She's not sure she's ready to win, but she's still figuring it all out. She insists Cortina is not a litmus test.

“I’m freer now and less constrained by pressure than I was before,” Vaughn said. "I don't feel the weight of expectations. I feel light."

This weightlessness has a lot to do with the perspective she gets from ski racing. "When you live like this every day, it wears you down," she said. "You're on the road; you live out of a suitcase. My suitcase the past few years - it was just a carry-on. Now I'm back to eight bags, but it doesn't feel as heavy as before.

"I'm 40 years old, I've been retired for six years and I've been through a lot. I think it's given me a lot of strength and wisdom and a completely different perspective on the World Cup than other people."

Vonn also said her body feels better than it has in more than a decade and, as a result, she is a better skier than when she retired in 2019. At the time, she had undergone multiple surgeries on both knees. In 2013, she underwent ACL repair surgery on her right knee and has been enduring ongoing pain. It was Vaughn's heart that carried her through her final seasons when her legs simply gave out.

“I was held together by a knee brace,” Vaughn said. "It's a miracle I got on the podium in the last race."

She knew she had many more years left in her heart. But her body was done.

In retirement, Vaughan challenged himself in areas where he was not the best in the world. She tried her hand at racing, writing books and skiing. But the pain persisted. Then, after months of research, in April 2024, she made the risky decision to undergo a partial knee replacement in hopes of living an active, pain-free life. A month later, she began to straighten her right leg and do exercises she hadn't done in years.

"Now I have two good legs. I have a second chance," Vaughn said. "You don't really know what you have until it's gone. I miss ski racing. Not just the competition, but my team, the atmosphere, my competitors, friends and coaches. I don't take any of that for granted "

Her chance was a rare one, a chance to turn back time, and Vaughn knew what an impossible gift it was. She also knew why she was here and what she wanted to get out of the experience.

"I do this for myself," she said. "I like that I'm here and I know what I can do."

Six years ago, Vonn thought ski racing was a thing of the past. Now, she has a chance to show what she's capable of - and perhaps cap off this extra chapter of her career by competing in her fourth Olympics - back where she first found herself.

“I think it makes people dream bigger,” she said. "Especially women. We're put in a box that we need to do 'this' at a certain time. But that's not the case. We are capable of so much more."