Vonn back in action at Lake Louise, ready to test repaired knee

Lindsey Vonn was back in action at Lake Louise on Tuesday, finishing 18th in training (Tom Kelly, U.S. Ski Team photo).

Vail’s Lindsey Vonn was back in action training at her favorite venue Tuesday, cruising to 18^th in a downhill run at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.

Vonn, 30, is on a long and arduous comeback trail after a crash and knee injury at the World Championships in Schladming, Austria, in February of 2013. Her bid to return to action for the Sochi Winter Olympics earlier this year came up short when she reinjured her knee and tried to race without an ACL at Lake Louise last year, pulling off a miraculous 5^th-place finish.

Ultimately, though, the 2010 Olympic downhill champion pulled the plug on her season and opted for a second surgery in January.

“I just have more confidence than last year,” Vonn said Tuesday after her training run. “I don’t really feel like the underdog; I feel like I’m just doing my best to have good runs and progress every day. I haven’t had a lot of training, so I’m using these training runs to try and work my way back into it. I feel confident. I hope to be on the podium, but I have to see how I stand.”

Vonn has won a record 14 times in the speed events (downhill and super-G) at Lake Louise, which some have dubbed “Lake Lindsey.” That total represents nearly 9 percent of her American record 59 career World Cup wins. She’s just four wins shy of surpassing Austrian legend Annemarie Moser-Proell’s all-time career victory mark of 62.

“I feel very strong, on par with my top years,” Vonn said Tuesday. “The difference is that I’ve obviously had two surgeries. I’m wearing a brace; things are different. I just have to trust my body at this point.

“I’m more aware of what’s going on in terms of the snow conditions and in training. If the snow isn’t good, I won’t run the course. I’m not taking excess risk. I’m going to save it all for the races and take it easier when training.”

The women race downhills on Friday and Saturday, followed by a super-G on Sunday. The men will be in Beaver Creek for the Birds of Prey downhill on Friday, followed by a super-G on Saturday and a giant slalom on Sunday.

Vonn, a two-time World Championships gold medalist in 2009, is hoping to be back in top form for the 2015 World Championships at Beaver Creek Feb. 2-15. One of Vonn’s World Cup wins came in a makeup super-G race on the men’s course at Beaver Creek in 2011.

Vonn said her giant slalom skiing is in surprisingly good shape after early-season training at Copper Mountain.

“I’m surprised about my GS skiing,” Vonn said. “I thought it would take longer to come back, but I was skiing GS really, really fast in Copper. I was teetering on the border of racing in Aspen, but I needed to really focus on speed because we didn’t get much training as we hoped because there was so much snow in Colorado.”

Aspen staged a women’s World Cup last weekend, with Eagle-Vail’s Mikaela Shiffrin finishing 6^th and 5^th respectively in GS and slalom races.

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David O. Williams

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David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.

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