the mother’s stroke, depression, the record that will be broken – Corriere.it

If there’s one thing that can be said about «Rise» it’s that Lindsey Vonn waited too long to write her autobiography: of course, it is logical to wait until the end of her career to publish a book, but perhaps the American champion would have done better to talk about herself during the work, before hanging up her skis. We also think so for the economic situation linked to news events. In fact, the epigraph “The autobiography of the most successful female skier of all time” appears on the back cover. It is a truth that is running out of time, probably on the order of a handful of days in this early 2023: Mikaela Shiffrin, who reached 80 victories between Christmas and the end of 2022 with Semmering’s hat-trickis now ready to overtake the 82 first places of the compatriot.

The Italian edition

It is a sprint that will then lead Mikaela to attack the absolute record (86) still held by Ingemar Stenmark

. The skier (combining the male and female genders) with the most scalps in the history of the World Cup will therefore be a woman (the judgment on absolute greatness instead follows other paths and in our opinion remains unthinkable because certain evaluations must be related to a precise era and the her characteristics), but she won’t be Lindsey as she could have been. So more than the failure to reach Stenmark, it is the shadow of Shiffrin that partially water down «Rise». But that doesn’t mean the book doesn’t deserve it, far from it. The Italian version has also been available for about a month (Mulattero editions, 21 euros; translation by Francesco Bazzanella, revision by Luca Giaccone) and ski enthusiasts – better still: sports (including Jannik Sinner, who is a great admirer of the champions ) — will be able to be accompanied by Vonn along an itinerary made of successes but at the same time of unexpectedly hard moments.

A story without discounts

Lindsey Vonn, born in 1984, was an Olympic champion and two-time world champion; at the Games she also won two bronzes, at the World Championships also three silvers and three bronzes. You also have 20 World Cups on your bulletin board – 4 overall -, the result of 82 victories, 35 second places and 20 third places. Her name was supposed to be Lindsay, but her father misregistered her. She and she was her maiden Lindsey Kildow: but after her divorce from her husband and trainer Thomas Vonn she wanted to keep her married surname. In “Rise” she chose the simplest scheme to tell about herself: the direct routethe same one he chose on the slopes to win as much as possible. This means zero discounts and space for everything, gossip and background stories included. As the publisher’s presentation states, «Lindsey Vonn is one of the icons of the change in status of women’s sports stars in the US and this path has not been painless, amidst misunderstandings, scandals and controversies. In this book Lindsey shares with readers her incredible journey, a life on the front lines built with determination, courage and resilience. One of the most determined skiers ever, she tells us about her obsession with the search for limits, pushed to the extreme to leave heavy aftermath both physically and mentally. Although she has always called on her incredible grit to overcome an endless list of injuries, the bill for her has been heavy. Lindsey speaks openly about the depression she’s battled for years.”

The dark evil

It is precisely the case to start from the dark evil, which has gripped (and gripped) so many champions — Lindsey mentions, among others, Michael Phelps, the swimming champion, and the basketball player Kevin Love, with whom she became friends once they shared the existential problem — and that Vonn in 2012 realized she could no longer hide. With the contraindications of the case. He writes, in chapter 17: “Since income depended on sponsors, having clinical depression was not only considered unusual, but downright risky. Risky for future prospects, for revenue, for the fans. Risky because no one really understood what career implications it had and what impact it could have on one’s performance… For years I thought it was something to hide and be ashamed of, but then I decided I had to at least understand how dangerous it could be to reveal my secret in the world”.

Chemistry and resilience

A courageous choice, which paid off and strengthened another feature of Lindsey: her tenacity and ability to react to tough times. “Having struggled with depression, as well as all the daily challenges of skiing, made me stronger, mentally and physically. Not only had I had to train to be the best on the track, but I had had to do it with brain chemistry that rebelled against my will. In fact, living with depression demonstrated my resilience as much as anything I’d achieved up to that point, or even more… I had found ways to handle the situation and just as many ways to avoid talking about it. Sometimes the topic peeped, but I had always managed to slip away. But keeping that darkness inside for ten years was hard and, after the divorce, I started talking about it more and more, first with the people close to me and then with everyone else. Once that door opened, I felt so much better.”

Guilt for mother’s stroke

The ideas offered by the book – made up of three macro-chapters: “Objectives”, “The fall line”, “Rise” – are countless. You have to choose and the birth of Lindsey is a must: the future champion came into the world with an urgent caesarean section because her mother had suffered a stroke. Her mother had been given only 50% of survival, but her husband courageously entrusted her to a young doctor who rescued her from death thanks to alternative therapies to the traditional ones. “When she woke up, she not only remembered my name, but she didn’t even remember that I was born.” It was the beginning of a long and ultimately successful rehabilitation process, but with inevitable consequences for her daughter: «I have always carried the weight of what happened to my mother on my shoulders. It’s impossible to tell if I was the cause of the stroke or if my coming into the world saved her life because she had to rush to the hospital. From a logical point of view, I remain blameless; but on the other hand, emotionally, it’s different and it’s hard not to feel guilty since I’m still going to be a part of this ugly story forever.”

The rivalry with Julia Mancuso

«Rise» is very good for at least half of the book, then the narration loses a bit of rhythm, except for precisely being revived in the passages on depression. Lindsey talks about the conflicts with her father (also for the choice to become a skier); of the beginnings on the snows of Minnesota (where she was born); of her doting grandfather; the very short track of Buck Hill (that’s why at the beginning she was very good at slalom: there you could do nothing else); by Erich Sailer, legendary Austrian coach and friend of dad who preached the «cure» of the 1000 poles a day in training; of the desire to find a place in the 2002 Olympic national team despite the coaches (whose comments he overheard) thought that the real talent was that Julia Mancuso with whom he tried, in vain, to have a friendly relationship.

The fall line and Olympic joy

Then Lindsey talks about the family’s move to Vail, Colorado, to favor her in the chosen sport (but this destabilized the union of the two parents), of the competitiveness in the team, in her feeling – when she was already the dominant Vonn – isolated and marginalized, of the marriage adventure with Thomas Vonn that ended badly, of the injuries and restarts. And of course victories. Many, important (“The Vancouver Olympic gold gave me one of the best days of my life: it repaid me with personal and family sacrifices”)born thinking you want to imitate Picabo Street, darling and the one who preceded it. You copied a trick from Picabo: «One day, with some hesitation because she didn’t want to be disturbed in the heating, I asked her what she looked at during a reconnaissance. She replied: the fall line, the one one would follow if gravity were the only force involved. I added: and how do you find out?. Immediate answer: I can’t explain it to you. You have to hear it. She must be clear to you ».
Her career explains that Lindsey Vonn has also well identified her.