As Lindsey Vonn stood in the start gate in Pyeongchang yesterday, waiting to race her final Olympic downhill, NBC declined to show the racer then on the course, Germany’s Kira Weidle, instead keeping the camera locked on Vonn. She took a series of quick, short breaths, and stamped her feet. Bode Miller, commentating for NBC after retiring from racing last fall, grimly noted her isolation. “There’s no one who can help you. You’re alone, at that point,” he said. (Weidle, omitted entirely from the primetime broadcast, finished 11th.) Vonn gave a tight smile, pumped her right hand, and, a minute later, pushed out of the start gate.
Vonn’s run wasn’t flawless. Needing to ski aggressively through the course’s choppy upper section, she played it safe, and lost a tenth of a second to Sofia Goggia, the 25-year-old Italian who sat in the lead. “She’s not taking risks with the line,” Miller said. Vonn thrashed through the next three gates, trying to straighten out, but the momentum was lost and she skied into second place, four tenths behind Goggia. Twenty minutes later, Norway’s Ragnhilde Mowinckel would bump Vonn down to third, where she remained. Behind Vonn, Americans Alice McKennis and Breezy Johnson finish fifth and seventh, in surprising and strong races. Vonn’s bronze medal goes with her 2010 gold, and the distinction—at age 33—of becoming the oldest woman to medal in alpine skiing.
