Lindsey Vonn cautious but solid, finishes 14th in World Cup comeback in St. Moritz: 'This is the perfect start'

Lindsey Vonn's back, and she's still got it.

Five years after calling it quits, the 40-year-old marked her Alpine Skiing World Cup comeback with a Super G race on the Corviglia piste in St. Moritz, Switzerland, on Saturday (21 December) – and secured a top-15 result, scoring a handful of World Cup points.

Vonn had to qualify for the right to race, and did so by competing in FIS Cup-level races earlier this month in Copper Mountain. On Saturday, she was the 31st to take to the Corviglia and the first of the non-seeded racers to do so.

In the start gate, the American took repeated deep breaths, as if nervous to finally return to the World Cup circuit. After all, with 28 wins, she entered the race as the most successful Super G World Cup racer of all time – a big legacy of her own to live up to.

But Vonn's racecraft clearly has not left her in her five seasons away from top-level competitive skiing. While she opted for a cautious start to the race, Vonn took clean lines and showed glimpses of her very best while maintaining in touch with the top times.

Vonn split the first two sectors around half a second behind leader and eventual winner Cornelia Hütter and only lost another half second or so over the rest of the race, finishing in 1:16.36. That was just 1.18 seconds off of Hütter's leading mark and good for 14th place, and better than half the racers who had come before her.

In the finishing zone, the American let out a big whoop of joy. There was no wiping off the beaming smile she wore on her face as she waved to cheering crowds who acknowledged her remarkable return.

Lindsey Vonn: 'Tomorrow will be better'

"I felt really good, there's definitely a lot I have left to give," Vonn told Eurosport afterwards. "I really wanted to get to the finish today and be solid. I didn't want to risk too much, today was not the day to do anything special.

"It was nice to feel the nerves again and to be in the start again but tomorrow will be better because now I'm used to it and I think the first one is the hardest because you just have to jump in, you have to dive in.

"When I'm in the starting gate, I don't see anything else but the gate in front of me. And it feels so good to have the nerves, to have the butterflies, to have the adrenaline, and to push yourself. I always feel it's me against the mountain and I love that feeling. In ski racing, there's no limit to what you can push yourself to.

"I think this is the perfect start and I look forward to trying to improve every race."

The first race is now out of the way. How far can this comeback go?