‘Bionic’ Vonn sets out on quest for global treble

(Reuters) – Lindsey Vonn opens her assault on triple gold in St Moritz on Tuesday with the great American racer threatening once again to be the most captivating figure at the world Alpine skiing championships.

The seemingly indestructible 32-year-old says she feels a bit like the Bionic Woman as she rebounds from yet another injury and nobody is ruling out the prospect of her writing another outlandish chapter of her own ‘super hero’ series.

Currently in the middle of another unfathomable comeback, this time from a broken right arm sustained in training late last year, the under-raced Vonn cannot be ruled out from adding to her career tally of six world championship medals.

Her quest starts on Tuesday in the super-G, the first title up for grabs in the championships which run until Feb. 19, with Vonn admitting that her body still feels “pretty sore” after she crashed twice in two days in Cortina d’Ampezzo last week.

She has had only five World Cup events back since her arm injury but was still good enough to win a 77th World Cup race at Garmisch-Partenkirchen last month.

“Anything is possible. Certainly I’ve won a lot of World Cups, world championship in super-G… I know it’s possible,” said Vonn, who believes the super-G may not offer her quite as good a chance of a third world title as Sunday’s blue riband downhill.

She will also attempt to strike gold in the combined event but admits that the slalom section of the race will effectively be a hopeful slide into the unknown for her, such is her current state of fitness.

Vonn’s fightback is appreciated throughout the skiing world but her hosts would rather see her win silver on Tuesday as they back Lara Gut, who suffered her own crash in Cortina but says she is 100 percent fit, to kick off the championships in golden style for Switzerland.

(Reporting by Ian Chadband; Editing by Clare Fallon)