With her surgically repaired knee nearly 100 percent, champion skier Lindsey Vonn said she's "just looking forward to going fast" this weekend on the slopes in Portillo, Chile.
Vonn told
USA Today she was itching to get back to skiing after recovering from a bad crash at February's world championships. Since then, while she rehabbed her knee, Vonn had been vanquished to just being Tiger Wood's girlfriend on the sidelines of the PGA Tour .
She told USA Today she's ready to reclaim her place as America's top female skier.
Urgent: Should U.S. Strike Syria? Vote Here
"I've been working so hard for so long to get back," said Vonn. "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."
While in Chile, Vonn will do a lot of free skiing but hopes to run some gates during her two-week stay, she told the
Denver Post. She said anything more will be up to 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 told the Post 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 Post. "Bill Sterett was very happy with her knee on Monday, and it looks good for starting ski training."
Urgent: Should Obamacare be Repealed? Vote Here Now
Vonn is the reigning Winter Olympics champion in the downhill and she also captured a bronze medal in the Super G in the 2010 Olympics. She 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, according to
Biography.com.
Related stories:
Lindsey Vonn: Marriage to Tiger Woods or Anyone Else Is Out
Kris Humphries Pursued Lindsey Vonn Before Tiger Woods Clinched Her?