Lindsey Vonn feels amazing as she eyes Olympic comeback at 40

LOS ANGELES - Lindsey Vonn, the American skier making a bid to get back to the Olympics at age 40, said Wednesday that her body felt better than it did seven years earlier when she last competed at the Games.

Vonn said a partial knee replacement last year had helped her overall fitness and enabled her to seek a spot on the U.S. ski team for the Milan-Cortina Olympics in February 2026.

My body feels amazing, Vonn said at an event hosted by U.S. Olympics broadcaster NBCUniversal.

Now that my knee is good again, I dont have any of the other problems, she added. So my backs great. My body feels good. I feel better than I did in the last Olympics, by a lot actually.

Vonn, who boasts 82 World Cup wins and counts one gold among her three Olympic medals, had retired in February 2019.

In November 2024, Vonn announced she planned a comeback. She earned a second-place finish in the super-G at the Womens World Cup Finals in March.

I have done everything I wanted to do in my career. This is not something that I ever expected, Vonn said of seeking to compete at the next Olympics.

Im going in looking to enjoy the experience, looking to be at a place that I love, that Ive had a lot of success at, she added.

Climate change has prompted concerns about whether the Italian ski town of Cortina will have enough snow during the Games. Vonn said she was not worried about the conditions.

Cortina has historically been so good at making a perfect racetrack, whether its man-made or natural snow, she said. No matter what the condition, it will be pristine. I am 100% sure of that.

American snowboarder Chloe Kim, who is chasing a third