Olympic ski champion Lindsey Vonn returns to snow

Olympic champion downhill skier Lindsey Vonn tested her surgically repaired knee over the weekend during some leisurely runs at the U.S. ski team’s training site in Portillo, Chile.

Vonn crashed last Feb. 5 during the world championships and tore the anterio cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in her right knee while also sustaining a fractured tibial plateau.

Vonn, who vowed at the time she would be back in time for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in February, appears well ahead of schedule.

“I’ve crashed a lot in my career and I’m just getting back up as fast as I can,” Vonn said in a statement. “Unfortunately it’s taken me seven months to get back up this time but I was really excited to get back out there. It feels like the right time and my body feels ready. I can’t tell which knee is injured -- that’s a good sign. I usually go from zero to a hundred. I’m not good in between so this is going to be a challenge.”

Vonn won the Olympic downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games and is a four-time World Cup overall champion. Already the most decorated alpine racer in U.S. history, she needs only three wins to tie Austrian great Annemarie Moser-Proll’s World Cup record of 62 wins.

Vonn hopes to return to the World Cup circuit during a three-day event at Beaver Creek, Colo., in late November.

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