In interview with the BBC, Olympic champion talks about how she’s adjusted to retirement
Former Vail resident and World Champion ski racer Lindsey Vonn is interviewed by BBC reporter Katty Kay as part of a special four-part series kicking off the BBC News Channel’s 2024 Olympics coverage. Kay said she wanted to interview some of the most legendary athletes from previous Olympic games for in-depth conversations about their lives, sports, and what it takes to succeed at the highest level.
BBC interviewer Katty Kay sat down with former Vail resident and Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn earlier this week to learn more about Vonn’s ski racing career and what her life has been like after the Olympics.
“It’s harder than I’ve expected it to be,” Vonn told Kay. “I’ve realized that there’s nothing that’s going to fill the hole of ski racing.”
Kay chose Vonn to interview as part of a special four-part series kicking off the BBC News Channel’s 2024 Olympics coverage. Kay said she wanted to interview some of the most legendary athletes from previous Olympic games for in-depth conversations about their lives, sports, and what it takes to succeed at the highest level.
“In addition to talking about the Olympics, it’s important to me that these interviews tell audiences more about who these incredible athletes are as people and that our conversations focused as much on the person as they do on the sport,” Kay said.
Sacrifices for success
Kay traced Vonn’s career from her childhood in Minnesota to the family’s move to Vail, which put pressure on Vonn to succeed, she said.
“I don’t think I really grasped the sacrifices that my family was making until everyone moved out to Colorado,” Vonn said. “I knew the financial burden it was putting on my family. … It was hard, and I realized that everything was being put on my plate, the hopes and dreams of my family were riding on my shoulders.”
Vonn said that pressure made her more focused on working hard and making sure everything she did helped her become more successful at ski racing. When her neighbors would have parties, she wouldn’t attend, she said.
“It was something that I just didn’t do, because I knew that my family was sacrificing everything for me, and I can’t let that go to waste,” Vonn said. “I can’t put that in jeopardy by having fun.”
A downhiller, Vonn said the rush of the sport’s fastest discipline made it exciting for her.
“Adrenaline is something that I feed off of, I love, I need it, it’s what gets me going, I need a challenge, I need something to push me,” she said.
During her career, Vonn won four World Cup overall championships — including three straight in 2008, 2009 and 2010. In 2010, she also took gold in downhill at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, a first for an American woman. She is third on the all-time World Cup wins list, with 82 victories, and is just one of six women to have won World Cup races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing — downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and super combined.
Of her 82 World Cup wins, 43 came in downhill while 28 came in super-G. Vonn landed on a World Cup podium 66 times in her favorite discipline of downhill. But since retiring, she has found some difficulty adjusting to regular life, she said.
“I think that’s actually the hardest thing for me now, in this next chapter of life without ski racing, is that I don’t have (an adrenaline rush), and I’ve had to try to figure out a way to find that excitement and adventure without racing downhill,” she said.
Life without ski racing is “pretty boring, to be honest,” Vonn added.
Vonn said she retired expecting it to be hard, but nevertheless, getting away from ski racing has been even harder than expected, she said.
“I’ve realized that there’s nothing that’s going to fill the hole of ski racing,” she said. “I’m never going to go 85 miles an hour again … And I don’t have that anymore. And I’ll never have that. And that’s really hard. Like, that’s just not something that goes away easily.
“I treat it like a death,” she added. “It’s, just, it’s no longer there. And, again, I find joy in other things, but it’s just nothing like ski racing, unfortunately.”