BEAVER CREEK — There’s more than one Vonn making a return to the ski scene this season.
Thomas Vonn, the former husband of four-time overall World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn, is at the world championships this week helping up-and-coming skier Dean Travers of the Cayman Islands. Thomas Vonn got back into the coaching business by doing some consulting work earlier in the season for a few U.S. skiers.
“Once I showed my face, a lot of people saw me around. People started wanting me to help them,” Vonn said. “It’s cool how it came together after being off snow for three years — feels like you’re almost forgotten sometimes.”
Thomas and Lindsey Vonn divorced in 2011 after more than four years of marriage. He was her coach when she won Olympic gold in the downhill at the Vancouver Games.
Since their split, Thomas Vonn said he’s “laid low from ski racing — 2011 was a difficult time for me. Really tough time for me. Had a bad taste in my mouth, so I laid low for a while, regrouped.”
He said he was happy to see Vonn return strong this season after missing the Sochi Olympics because of two knee surgeries. She recently broke the record held by Austrian great Annemarie Moser-Proell for most World Cup wins by a female skier.
“There was never a doubt in my mind that she would break it,” he said.
Travers, a graduate of Aspen High in 2014, is racing in the super-G.
