Three-time Olympic medalist Lindsey Vonn announced her retirement this afternoon, after 19 years as a top-level competitor and four Winter Olympics for the U.S.A. Vonn, 34, announced the news on Instagram, saying that her last race will be the world championships in Sweden next week.
Vonn will leave the sport as the most dominant female ski racer in history. Her 82 World Cup wins are the most ever for a woman, and she will fall just short of Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86. “Retiring without reaching my goal is what will stay with me forever,” she wrote. “However, I can look back at 82 World Cup wins, 20 World Cup titles, 3 Olympic medals, 7 World Championship medals and say that I have accomplished something that no other woman in HISTORY has ever done, and that is something that I will be proud of FOREVER!”
Vonn’s career was also unfortunately defined by injuries. She had to miss the 2014 Olympics with knee problems, and she is walking away from competing because of more knee issues. In her post, Vonn revealed that she had surgery last spring for another knee injury—do NOT scroll to the fourth photo if you don’t want to see a big chunk of cartilage—but she raced in the Olympics to try and win a medal for her late grandfather. She succeeded, taking bronze in the downhill, though a crash last November severely set her back again. After winning that medal, she tearfully told an interviewer that her body probably wouldn’t hold up through another Olympic cycle. “My body is broken beyond repair and it isn’t letting me have the final season I dreamed of,” she wrote today.
