With just weeks to go until Milano Cortina 2026, the 41-year-old skiing superstar shows she’s in top physical and mental shape: ‘I’m really in balance. It feels amazing, and I try to enjoy every second,’ she said after her 84th World Cup win.

“Lindsey Vonn, you’ve already won,” read one poster held aloft by a fan in the crowd at the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in Zauchensee on Saturday (10 January).

Whether said poster had been written prior to the women’s downhill race in Austria or hurriedly scribbled after Vonn’s second-season victory is not clear.

What is becoming increasingly prescient with each passing race, however, is that the Vancouver 2010 Olympic champion has every right to believe she is in contention to add to her three medals at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, which begin on 6 February,

“I know my limits really well; I’m really in balance. I can play with things a little bit more,” she told broadcaster Eurosport after securing her 84th win.

“I can play with the line, play with my tactics. I know exactly where I am, what I want to do, and my body is responding the way I want it to. I’m strong; I can pull a tight radius or I can make a long-radius turn. Whatever I want to do, I can do it.

“That’s an amazing feeling, because my body hasn’t always been responding that way for me in the past, so now it’s a whole other ball game. It feels amazing, and I try to enjoy every second I’m out here because it’s just so fun to go fast!”

Vonn is the only woman to have made the podium in all four downhill races this all-important 2025-26 season – no woman made more than three in 2024-25.

Two of the three skiers who achieved the trio of podiums last season, Italy’s Sofia Goggia and Austria’s Cornelia Huetter could only finish 17th and 20th, respectively, on Saturday. The third, Italy’s speed skiing superstar, Federica Brignone is facing a race against time to return from injury to compete at a home Olympic Games.

The Minnesota native also claimed a seventh World Cup victory on the Kälberloch course, having secured her first there in the former super-combined event in January 2009.

“I’m a pretty stubborn and driven person,” Vonn said in an interview with FIS after the race, to explain her success.

“I have an immense amount of competitiveness in me, it’s just how I’m wired, so I’m thankful I have that ability.”

Lindsey Vonn hints at medal ambitions in Cortina finale: ‘Everyone knows how competitive I am’

The three-time Olympic medallist explains why aiming for a podium at her last Olympics is ‘not a bold statement’: ‘I’ve done it before. If there’s anything I know how to do, it’s skiing. I may be totally clueless at everything else, but if there’s one thing I can be confident in, it’s that I know how to ski race,’ the 41-year-old told Olympics.com.

Lindsey Vonn, a risk taker

Starting with bib number six, Vonn laid down the marker early, and stayed put in the leader’s chair throughout, cheering on her compatriots as they made their way down the shortened course due to inclement weather.

Jacqueline Wiles, a recipient in her youth of support from The Lindsey Vonn Foundation, which empowers girls from underserved communities, delighted Vonn by finishing third (1:06.72).

With athletes sending a snow report back to their compatriots still to come, Wiles knew what she had to do. Try and emulate her mentor.

“Lindsey had a great report up, saying ‘You’ve just got to send it as hard as you can, just be aggressive and keep attacking’, so I think that was really helpful to hear,” Wiles said.

“When I watched her, I felt like she cut a little bit of the line, and when I saw that she pulled that off really well, I knew that I wanted to try and do that and just charge as hard as possible.

Vonn’s nous in hiring friend and double Olympic champion Aksel Lund Svindal as coach to help in her endeavour to win an Olympic medal in Italy, also appears a masterstroke.

But even the Norwegian great knows that Vonn will forever follow her own path, especially in her happy place – race day.

With a shortened course due to heavy snowfall, choosing the correct line was crucial to avoid soft snow. Vonn went straighter than anyone else on the tricky Panorama turn, which even the now 84-time World Cup winner wasn’t sure would pay off. Her support staff were even more unsure.

“The coaches were a little bit hesitant on going that tight because it’s really easy to go too straight and then you’re in trouble,” she said.

“In general, I thought the speeds were pretty low, so that’s why I felt I was able to take the risk. I felt within myself, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything crazy, but definitely it was a much different line than everyone else was taking, and that’s why I was able to ski a little bit faster than the rest.”

Incredibly, Vonn has raced against 15 athletes in downhill so far this season who were born after her first World Cup start in the event on 29 November 2001.

Nevertheless, the U.S. veteran, who also has two world titles, is still showing her competitors how it’s done and with weeks to go until Milano Cortina 2026, Vonn is eyeing quite the return to winter sport’s premier showcase.

*As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes’ participation at the Milano Cortina Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Milano Cortina 2026