SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) 鈥 Big jumps. Lots of terrain. Steep pitches.
The downhill course at the would have been a challenge for aching legs before she retired in 2019.
Now that she鈥檚 replaced part of her right knee with ? No problem.
鈥淭his is probably the worst hill for someone with bad knees, but I felt great,鈥 Vonn said after placing 20th in the opening training session Tuesday. 鈥淣one of the landings hurt at all.鈥
Vonn returned to the skiing circuit in December at the age of 40 and she wasn鈥檛 initially planning on racing at the worlds. But she鈥檚 made so much progress that she鈥檚 going to enter the super-G on Thursday, the downhill on Saturday and the team combined event next week.
So what did the American standout make of her training performance?
鈥淚 was just taking it easy,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 thought it was a really fun course, actually. Reminds me of when I was learning how to ski downhill at Vail. We had a lot of terrain that we built like this, so it鈥檚 fun."
Lara Gut-Behrami, Breezy Johnson and Federica Brignone placed 1-2-3 in the training session.
Val Grenier, of St. Isidore, Ont., finished 25th while Cassidy Gray, of Invermere, B.C., was 34th.
There are two more training sessions before Saturday's downhill race.
鈥淚 really put zero weight into training runs because I鈥檓 testing things,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 have my jacket on. I have all my pads on. I鈥檓 trying different boots and in the training runs I鈥檝e never done that before.鈥
that the main goal of her comeback is to compete at next season鈥檚 Milan-Cortina Olympics 鈥 after which she鈥檒l head back into retirement.
鈥淭his season,鈥 Vonn said, 鈥渋s all about figuring out what it鈥檚 going to take to be successful next year.鈥
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