By Simon Briggs
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Lindsey Vonn’s approach to winter sports always puts me in mind of another great aficionado of ice and snow – Sir Ranulph Fiennes – and the mantra he used to chant during his most demanding treks.
“Stick it, stick it, stick it.”
In a sport that requires both resilience and a miraculous ability to block out fear, Vonn earned her 82 World Cup wins and three Olympic medals in blood, bone and sinew. She had her joints reconstructed with the same regularity that most of us visit the dentist.
So while it was horrible to see Vonn’s Olympic career end in a vortex of pain above Cortina D’Ampezzo, this was entirely in keeping with the way she played the game.
Perhaps it is premature to rush to any judgment now, when we do not yet know what price she will pay for her latest gamble. Some will argue that it was irresponsible of her to race at all, when you consider the state of her knees – one of which is titanium and the other featuring a torn ACL. Could she have been saved from this latest crash by stronger team management? After five years away from the sport, was she herself refusing to face reality?
You could certainly make all these arguments. BBC presenter Chemmy Alcott seemed particularly horrified as she dissolved into tears while on air. At the same time, though, we should acknowledge that this was Vonn’s choice, her way and her right. To borrow a phrase from the Instagram generation, this was her truth.
We hear similar debates every year when the famously lethal Isle of Man TT race comes around, and the conversation begins about whether a modern society should allow riders to risk their bodies – and indeed their lives – for the thrill of the chase.
In a world so nannyish that some restaurants now issue food-storage instructions with every doggy bag, such free-spirited adventurism feels like a throwback. Motorbike riders like Michael Dunlop and Guy Martin could be successors to the SAS Rogue Heroes: men who come alive in the presence of threat.
It might be different if Vonn had been part of a team event, and her risk-taking thus had the potential to undermine her colleagues. But skiing is primarily an individual discipline. One of the most individual, you might say, given that every racer must decide how far they push the envelope of possibility.
It is certainly not for everyone. Tennis champion Jannik Sinner was a promising junior skier, once finishing second in a national giant-slalom race for 12-year-olds, but gave it up because “if you make one mistake, one big mistake, you cannot win”.
For Vonn, by contrast, that sense of ever-present danger is what gives life spice. “I’ve never been afraid,” she said this week. “I’ve always been the kid that climbs the tree. My grandpa always called me a daredevil. That’s why I’m a downhiller. I like risk. I like going fast. I like pushing myself to the limit.”
Hindsight now suggests that Vonn pushed herself too far. Will she regret her decisions? It’s perhaps too early to say. But as long as she recovers without life-limiting consequences, I suspect she will go away satisfied that she was true to herself.
Telegraph, London
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
