The 2011–2012 ski season was the best in Lindsey Vonn’s career. With 12 wins, she crushed her opponents on slope after slope. When Vonn looks back on it now, she doesn’t chalk it up to her practice runs or new tough regimen. She worked as hard as she ever had—fast and resolute. But she’d also just filed for divorce. And therein, her secret weapon.
Lindsey Kildow had married Thomas Vonn in 2007. He was a professional skier too and had competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Later he became her coach. The Chicago Tribune covered the split and noted that Vonn had decided to keep her married name. “The question now,” the piece speculated, “is whether she will continue to ski like [it].” Without her husband, would she ski like “the same Lindsey Vonn”?
Vonn read the piece and seethed. (She still remembers the writer’s name.) When male athletes divorced, no one wondered about the fate of their careers. No one questioned their talent or assumed it was tied up in someone else’s last name. It wasn’t the first time the press had irritated her; she felt it each time she got injured or had a bad race. When a man was hurt, the press assumed he’d recover. Vonn felt she was counted out over and over. This time she went back to the mountain and made up her mind: “Stockpile the hate and use it as fuel,” she told herself. For the next five months, she burned it to ash. At each event she’d think, Fuck. You. And then she’d win.
