ASPEN — Lindsey Vonn expects to race at the Aspen Winternational despite a spill during practice a week and a half ago.
“It’s definitely a different feeling going in there, having a little bit of a knee problem and trying to make sure I’m resting as much as I can instead of training as hard as I can,” Vonn said.
This weekend’s Winternational, an annual U.S. tour stop for the women’s World Cup, starts Saturday with the giant slalom and concludes Sunday with a slalom.
Vonn, the downhill and overall World Cup champion last season, won her first World Cup slalom event in Levi, Finland, on Nov. 15.
Four days later, during a super-G training run at Copper Mountain, Vonn bruised her left knee when she lost a ski and crashed.
Doctors initially were concerned she may have damaged cartilage, but an MRI found no structural damage, easing fears she might need surgery. Vonn already had offseason surgery on the same knee for an unrelated problem.
“For a while there, it was looking actually pretty grim,” said Vonn, a Minnesota native who now lives in Park City, Utah. “I’m just going to have to baby it a little bit. I’m going to take it easy and make sure that it’s healed because I don’t want to re-injure it.”
Vonn lost several days of training and wasn’t cleared medically to compete at Aspen until Wednesday.
