Sawt Falasteen - Comeback queen Vonn rounds on critics, eyes world podium

Vonn retired after the 2019 Are world championships, but made a comeback this season after a knee reconstruction left her pain-free for the first time in years.

The American has impressed on her return to the slopes in what she said was a season designed to get in shape for a tilt at next year's Winter Olympics in Milan/Cortina d'Ampezzo.

But speaking ahead of the world championships in Saalbach, Vonn delivered a fiery tirade at critics who have openly questioned her sanity and life.

"I don't think I really deserved the disrespectful comments to the degree that they were given. I of course expected criticism in that, 'Is my knee safe?' That's a valid question," she said.

"But there were a lot of questions that had to do with me as a person and my psychological state and what life is outside of skiing. And that was completely inappropriate and disrespectful and I didn’t deserve it.

"No one asked Marcel (Hirscher) if his life was fulfilled outside of ski racing, or if he needed to see a psychologist," she said in reference to the Austrian slalomer whose comeback this season was cut short by injury.

"They were only directed at me."

Vonn said she felt no pressure coming into the Saalbach worlds, all the time insisting she was ready to compete for a medal.

"It's going to be a special world championships for me," Vonn said of her ninth outing at the worlds, which started in Bormio back in 2005.

"I didn't anticipate doing so well so quickly. Competing here was definitely not something I anticipated. The season has been all about managing my expectations.

"I'm fast, I'm competitive, I think I'm ready to compete for a medal. Hopefully I'm fast enough to be on the podium.

"The only thing that count is medals."

Vonn said her knee felt "incredible. Physically I feel great".

- 'Icing on the cake' -

But she added: "I'm not here to prove anything to anyone.

"World championships and Olympics are all about managing pressure and expectation and I don't have those now. I'm just skiing for me."

Things could change, however, come the Italian Alps in 12 months time.

"I'm sure that at next year's Olympics, if I make a team, there will be expectations, but right now, I don't feel like I have any, and I honestly don't even know where I will place.

"I of course hope to be on the podium, but I could be 10, and honestly, that's fine as well.

"My goal has never been to be competitive this year."

Just being back on snow, Vonn said, had made her feel "satisfied".

"This is just the icing on the cake, or the cherry on top for me again."

Turning to her potential participation in the team combination, in which two athletes from the same team race one run of downhill and one of slalom, Vonn said she would love the chance to do it alongside Mikaela Shiffrin.

"Absolutely it would be probably one of the coolest things racing," Vonn said, with Shiffrin having made her comeback from an injury sustained in November just last week.

"I don't know if she's even competing," she said of Shiffrin, who has 99 World Cup victories to her name.

"But if there's a chance to compete with her, I would absolutely compete with her, I would absolutely if she can... 181 World Cup victories on one team!"

W.Mansour--SF-PST