LONDON (Reuters) - Lindsey Vonn will end her career as the greatest Alpine ski racer of all time but might one day be usurped by fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin, according to Bode Miller.
Vonn is considering ending her career before next month’s world championships in Are, Sweden with a succession of knee injuries having taken a toll on the 34-year-old.
But even if the former Olympic downhill champion falls just short of Swedish slalom specialist Ingemar Stenmark’s long-standing record of 86 World Cup wins, former team mate Miller says she should be regarded as the best ever.
“In my opinion she is at the very top. You can make a lot of different cases for a lot of different athletes and her case is strong,” four-time world champion Miller, who will be analyzing the Are championships for broadcaster Eurosport, said.
“She has a lot of check marks that put her at the very, very top. Stenmark lived in a different era, it wasn’t the modern era and he never had to deal with the things Lindsey had to deal with throughout her career.
Stenmark’s victories all came in slalom and giant slalom whereas Vonn, while a speed specialist, is one of six women to have won World Cup races in all five disciplines.
Slalom specialist Shiffrin was tipped to win a stash of medals at last year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, but only managed one — in the giant slalom.
“This isn’t swimming, this isn’t track and field — you are dealing with a lot of variables and a lot of small margins,” the 41-year-old said.
“A lot of times in ski racing it is not in your control and the ski race is literally taken out of your control by the variables. I lost a lot of races from variables I couldn’t control, but I also lost a lot of races from my own mistakes.