Lindsey Vonn is the most successful female racer of all time and not far off overtaking the most successful male to become the all time greatest in terms of World Cup, World Championship and Olympic podiums and medals.
Vonn has been speaking exclusively to Eurosport during their coverage of the FIS Alpine Ski World Championships which have just got underway in St Moritz in an interview with Jonathan Edwards on Eurosport’s Winter Sports Extra show this evening. They kindly sent us these quotes with images which are supplied with permission from Getty/Eurosport.
On her TV show Chasing History now showing on Eurosport:
“I’ve had a lot of great feedback. I’ve been checking in on peoples’ responses on Twitter and Facebook and everyone was really inspired and thought it was well done and they are excited for the next episode. I’m really happy with it and I’m looking forward to continuing this project and creating some more fun shows. The cameras are following me around pretty much all day so I’m just myself and you get to see me. There is a lot that goes on in my training and in my rehab and just hanging out with my family and friends. That’s just me you know – it’s my life. I work hard and do the best that I can each day. I go through things like seeing the doctor and my therapist. It’s a lot but I love it and I just enjoy every day, and I think you see that on the show.”
On her Super G performance:
“I took risks, you know, I wanted win or to be on the podium. I took an aggressive line but obviously I lost my pole and my coach calculated it was about seven gates, which is quite a lot and definitely distracted me. But I was charging, you know, I went for it. You are not going to win anything if you don’t risk something. I’m happy with my result as I gave everything I had, I came up short but that is ski racing.”
On losing her pole in the Super G:
“I was so distracted, I was trying to stay in the rhythm and I knew where I was on the course but I wasn’t attacking I was just trying to figure out what was going on. Should I lose my pole? Should I try to get it back? And by the last section I put it against my thigh and I got it back but I wasn’t sure how id skied because I was distracted and thought I need to make up some time so I pushed the line a little bit and went to straight. So now I’m using duct tape!
“In 2009 I sliced my finger on a champagne bottle – a funny story! I duct taped my hand to my pole for half a season, including the slalom at the World Championships. I’ve done it before. It’s kind of annoying as once you are taped in you can’t get it out, so I need a bit of help at the start. But least I know my pole is going to stay on and I don’t have to think about it.”
On the Downhill:
“Super G has definitely been a struggle this year. Downhill is nice to have the training runs and build my confidence. Today I took it easy to get a feel for the terrain, the hills are pretty big so I kind of just checked it out. I like the way the course is set so I’m going to keep improving on the training runs and hopefully do something in the combined. I just did slalom training today for the first time since Andorra last year so it’s been about a year since I skied slalom and did three runs today. My slalom days are over but combined I might be able to pull it off, I will definitely need a lot of duct tape for that.”
On PyeongChang one year to go:
“I am very excited. The Olympics are something that motivate me and that I really work hard for. I was obviously disappointed that I didn’t got to Sochi because if my knee injury so I’m looking forward to PyeongChang and the test races this year to get a good feel for the course hopefully and just stay healthy.”