As a 16-year-old rookie on the US alpine ski team, Lindsey Vonn overheard her coaches talking. She would never make it to the top, they said, following several failed attempts to alter her technique.
But Vonn stuck to her guns. “Historically in my life, any time anyone tells me I can’t do something, I’m going to work my hardest to prove them wrong,” she recalled in a 2020 interview. “And I proved them wrong.”
On Sunday, Vonn will once again try to confound the doubters when she competes for a gold medal in arguably the most dangerous sport on the Olympic programme, just days after tearing a knee ligament, damaging another and bruising a bone. The typical recovery from this is about a year. Vonn, a self-confessed adrenaline junkie with “some loose screws”, will have had nine days.