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Olympic downhill champion Lindsey Vonn broke her media silence Tuesday on the Today Show, telling host Matt Lauer that she intends to compete another five years.
Vonn will miss the Sochi Olympics because of a right knee injury suffered while training at Copper Mountain in November. That followed an injury to the same knee at the world championships last February.
"After making the decision not to compete in Sochi, I've actually committed myself to racing through to the next Olympics," Vonn said from Pensacola, Fla. "I'm very motivated, I have a lot to accomplish still, and I'm going to take my time. I felt a little bit rushed last time, trying to be back and ready for Sochi, but I'm not going to probably ski until October. I'm going to be racing next year and the year after that and the year after that."
Vonn has confidence in her ability to recover.
"I've been through this once before, so I kind of know the drill unfortunately," Vonn said. "It's been almost two weeks [since surgery] and it feels all right. It was a little less complicated than the first surgery, didn't have to work on the MCL, but unfortunately had to reconstruct the ACL again and also had significant meniscus damage. It was pretty major surgery, despite being better than last time, but I'm recovering well."
Vonn needs four World Cup victories to become the winningest female in history, and she has a big goal next year — the world championships at Beaver Creek. If she does compete in the 2018 Olympics in South Korea, she will be 33.
During the Sochi Olympics she will be working for NBC, albeit not in Sochi.
"It's going to be really, really hard to watch the alpine events," Vonn said. "I always love watching the other athletes compete, like figure skating and luge and all that stuff, but it's going to be really hard to watch the alpine events."