Following an accident at the world championships, Lindsey Vonn's injured knee is almost fully healed and the champion skier said she's "just looking forward to going fast" on the slopes in Portillo, Chile.
Vonn told USA Today that she was itching to hit the snow after recovering from a bad crash at February's world championships.
The four-time World Cup overall champion said she felt good after a training session, in which her coach told her to take it slow.
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Since then, Vonn has been supporting her boyfriend Tiger Wood on the sidelines of the PGA Tour while rehabbing her knee.
She said she's ready to reclaim her place as America's top female skier.
"I've been working so hard for so long to get back," Vonn told USA Today. "I don't care what I do as long as I'm on snow. I just want to get back to my job. I'm an Olympic ski racer. I don't read into what people say especially now. Whether people know me for my skiing or not is really irrelevant because people in ski racing know and respect me and that's all that really matters."
Vonn told the Denver Post that while in Chile, she will do a lot of free skiing but hopes to run some gates during her two-week stay. Any other exercise is at the discretion of Dr. Bill Sterett, who performed her surgery in February.
"I asked (Sterett) to come down," Vonn said. "So he's coming down, and will monitor me. I'm hoping to start training in a couple of days, but my expectations are sometimes a little out of whack."
Vonn said she is hoping for enough snow in Vail by October to train at home, but Europe is another option.
"She's doing great, we are happy with the progress," Martin Hager, Vonn's trainer, told the Denver Post. "Bill Sterett was very happy with her knee on Monday, and it looks good for starting ski training."
Vonn is the reigning Winter Olympics champion in the downhill category and captured a bronze medal in the Super G in the 2010 Olympics. Vonn won the first of several World Cup skiing titles during the 2007-08 season.
She made her Olympic debut at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2002.
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