Lindsey Vonn apologizes for Mikaela Shiffrin’s comments at the skiing World Championships

• Pair had been proposed as a possible pair in the combined event.
• Vonn commented on X after the teams were announced.

Lindsey Vonn admitted she “didn’t help myself” by making comments about Mikaela Shiffrin’s participation in the skiing world championship.

Vonn had hoped to race alongside Shiffrin in a skiing “dream team” at the world championships for the new combined event, which will also make its Olympic debut next year. Vonn expressed her displeasure when Shiffrin announced on Instagram that she would be racing alongside newly crowned downhill world champion Breezy Johnson.

“Why am I not surprised?” Vonn posted on X with a shrug emoji before deleting it and adding another.

Shiffrin will not defend the GS world title due to a ‘PTSD struggle’ following the crash.

Shiffrin revealed on Monday that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of a November crash and that she will not defend her giant slalom gold medal at the world championship. She did, however, say she would race in the slalom and team events.

“Maybe I didn’t help myself or the team by having my Twitter fingers out,” Vonn said on Tuesday. “But, at the same time, I am a human being, and I was disappointed by the communication. And I made my feelings known. I am a human. I have feelings. “So shoot me.”

The new combined event consists of one racer competing in a downhill run and another in a slalom, with the two times added together to determine the overall results. Johnson and Shiffrin won gold on Tuesday, while Vonn and her partner, AJ Hurt, finished 16th after Vonn had a poor downhill run, leaving her team 21st after the morning leg. Vonn missed the medal ceremony because she needed to catch a flight, but she did congratulate Johnson and Shiffrin on X, saying, “What a team!!!”

She also expressed disappointment with her own run.

“I was in my tuck pretty much the whole way down and just not accelerating anywhere,” said Vonn, who is 40 years old and returned to full-time skiing this season after nearly six years of retirement. So I clearly have work to do. “I need to experiment with my boots to find the best fit, but changing your entire setup during a world championship race is challenging.”

The US team’s coaching staff chose the combined pairings based on their “season-best results” in downhill and slalom.

“I didn’t have a problem with the selection process,” Vonn informed the audience. “It was absolutely the right decision. Breezy and Mikaela should be the couple. They are the two fastest skiers. My only complaint was that it was not communicated to me. I found out about it through Instagram. And I think it’s a bit unprofessional. It’s as simple as calling or texting. I don’t think that’s a particularly difficult request.

Vonn stated that she reached out to Shiffrin, who agreed that the two should race together. However, Vonn was later informed that Shiffrin would not be competing in the combined. Vonn learned of Shiffrin’s final decision to race in the event via Instagram.

“It would have been cool if those two greats had raced together, but others are currently performing better,” said US speed coach Alex Hoedlmoser. “We had to make sure to bring the fastest pairings together, and it was very obvious that Breezy was the fastest in the downhill and therefore would race with Mikaela.”