Lindsey Vonn’s approach to winter sports always puts me in mind of another great aficionado of ice and snow – Sir Ranulph Fiennes – and the mantra he used to chant during his most demanding treks.

“Stick it, stick it, stick it.”

In a sport that requires both resilience and a miraculous ability to block out fear, Vonn earned her 82 World Cup wins and three Olympic medals in blood, bone and sinew. She had her joints reconstructed with the same regularity that most of us visit the dentist.

So while it was horrible to see Vonn’s Olympic career end in a vortex of pain above Cortina D’Ampezzo, this was entirely in keeping with the way she played the game.

Perhaps it is premature to rush to any judgment now, when we do not yet know what price she will pay for her........

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