Lindsey Vonn - The Guts

ALPINE SKIING - TEAM USA - OLYMPICS

ARCHETYPE: THE GUTS

Day 76/135

Athletic Accomplishments

With 82 World Cup race wins, including four overall World Cup titles, Lindsey Vonn was one of the most dominant athletes of the past two decades.

While her Olympic career started in 2002, Vonn really started moving up the ranks in 2007, when she earned silver medals in both downhill and super-G at the World Championships.

In 2008, Vonn came back from a low grade ACL tear and won the overall World Cup title. She would go on to win the World Cup again in 2009, 2010, and 2012. At this point, everyone in the alpine skiing was talking about the fearless American, who received the 2010 Laureus Sportswoman of the Year award and the United States Olympic Committee's Sportswoman of the Year.[8]

Vonn also won a record eight World Cup season titles in the downhill discipline (2008–2013, 2015, 2016), as well as five titles in super-G (2009–2012, 2015), and three consecutive titles in the combined (2010–2012).

In 2014, Vonn had to sit out of the Olympic Games in Sochi, due to a knee injury. But by 2015, she was back with a vengeance, winning multiple medals at the World Cup and World Championships. By 2016, Vonn had won her 20th World Cup crystal globe title, surpassing the overall record.

In 2019, Vonn won a bronze in the women’s downhill—her best event. At age 34, she became the oldest woman to win a World Championship medal, and the first races to receive six World Championship medals.

Later that year, citing injuries, Vonn decided to retire the most decorated and successful alpine skier of all time.

Character Archetype: The Guts

With 82 World Cup race wins, four World Cup overall championships, three Olympic medals, and World Cup titles in all five disciplines of alpine skiing, it’s pretty obvious to declare Lindsey Vonn the best alpine skier of all time.

Vonn is well-known for her aggressive workouts and how well she used her power and speed on the slopes. But what is most remarkable about Vonn is how she never seemed scared of the slopes or the moment. Even at great peril to her body, she always went for the win.

It’s hard to forget her getting airlifted off a mountain after a 60 mph crash at the 2006 Olympics, and then coming back the next day to compete in four events. In the end, the injuries forced Vonn to retire in 2019, just 4 wins shy of the overall record of 86 World Cup wins.

Some might say that Vonn’s career could have been longer if she’d been more conservative. But it’s hard to believe she would have been as successful without her brazen attempts, her fearlessness, her big, beautiful guts.