The China Mail - US speed star Lindsey Vonn: Olympic timeline

Vonn won the gold medal in downhill and a bronze in the super-G at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 and added another bronze in the downhill at Pyeongchang in 2018.

The American hung up her ski boots in 2019, but has staged a stunning comeback, including two World Cup downhill victories.

Rivals be warned, Vonn has already won 12 times in Cortina during her career, with six downhill wins and six super-G victories.

AFP Sport chronicles Vonn's performances at previous Olympics:

- 2002 Salt Lake City -

Races: slalom (did not finish/DNF); combined (6)

Vonn made her Olympic debut on home snow at the age of 17, finishing sixth in the combined. Vonn -- then skiing under her maiden name of Kildow – went on to her first World Cup race in December 2004.

- 2006 Torino -

Races: downhill (8); super-G (7); slalom (14); combined (DNF)

Vonn was second fastest in the opening downhill training run, but crashed heavily in the second and had to spend a night in hospital. She rebounded in time to race the downhill, eventually finishing eighth.

"I was pretty nervous at the start,” she said. "I was okay in the warm-up, but I have a lot of pain in my back. My left butt cheek doesn't seem to work."

Vonn went on to claim seventh in the super-G after finishing 14th in the slalom.

- 2010 Vancouver -

Races: downhill (1); super-G (3); slalom (DNF); giant slalom (DNF); combined (DNF)

A year on from double gold (downhill, super-G) at the Val d'Isere world championships, the stage was set for the American, by now married to fellow skier Thomas Vonn, to shine. And she didn't disappoint.

Vonn claimed the USA’s first-ever women's Olympic downhill gold in the Canadian resort of Whistler.

"I got what I came here to do, I got a gold medal," Vonn said, also bagging a bronze in the super-G to cement her place as the leading female speed skier.

She had also led after the downhill of the combined, but skied out of the slalom section. There were similar 'did not finishes' in the slalom and giant slalom races.

- 2014 Sochi -

Absent: injured

Vonn suffered a dramatic crash during the fog-hit super-G race at the 2013 Schladming world championships. She was leading but cartwheeled into the safety netting, leaving her with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in her right knee, with a tibial plateau fracture. She re-injured the knee on her return to action, which caused her to miss the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

- 2018 Pyeongchang -

Races: downhill (3); super-G (6=); combined (DNF)

Now 33, Vonn was one of global sport's most recognisable and marketable female figures. She claimed bronze in the downhill and a joint-sixth finish in the super-G.

"If you think about what's happened over the last eight years and what I've been through to get here, I gave it all and to come away with a medal is a dream come true," said Vonn, then swearing it was her last Olympics.

- 2022 Beijing –

Absent: retired

Vonn sat out the Beijing Olympics after announcing she would retire following the 2019 world championship when she bettered her own record for the oldest woman racer (34) to win a medal by taking another bronze in the downhill.

That also saw her become the first female racer to receive medals at six different world championships.

While US teammate Mikaela Shiffrin, with 108 wins, has bettered Vonn's World Cup tally of 84, the 41-year-old is back with a bang ahead of the Milan-Cortina Olympics and should never be counted out.

B.Clarke--ThChM