ST. MORITZ, Switzerland (AP) — Lindsey Vonn didn’t just pop into the hospital one day, get a new titanium knee and then decide on the way out that she wanted to return to downhill ski racing.
It’s been a long, calculated process involving several minor and some major knee surgeries, careful vetting of the medical issues involved and then months of on-snow testing in New Zealand, Austria and Colorado to see how her body and new knee would react at age 40.
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Lindsey Vonn talks with a coach after competing in a Super G skiing race at Copper Mountain Ski Resort, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Copper Mountain, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Forerunner Lindsey Vonn finishes a run before a women's World Cup super-G ski race, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Lindsey Vonn prepares to be a forerunner at a women's World Cup downhill training run, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Beaver Creek. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Lindsey Vonn talks with a coach after competing in a Super G skiing race at Copper Mountain Ski Resort, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Copper Mountain, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Forerunner Lindsey Vonn skis before a women's World Cup super-G ski race, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Lindsey Vonn watches the other racers after her first downhill forerun on the Birds of Prey at the World Cup skiing event, Wednesday, Dec. 11, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily via AP)
So now that she’s preparing to step into a World Cup starting gate this weekend for the first time in nearly six years for super-G races in St. Moritz on Saturday and Sunday, she’s getting fed up with how several of her fellow skiing champions are questioning why she would return to the sport’s most dangerous disciplines at such an advanced age.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a replacement for several years. I did a lot of research. I know people think that I’m insane. But I am actually kind of smart. I have done a few operations, so I know a few doctors. I talked to a lot of them,” Vonn said. “I talked to (extreme skier) Chris Davenport, who also had a partial knee replacement and he skis like 150 days a year. … So that gave me a lot of confidence."
Vonn got most of her medical advice from Tom Hackett, an orthopedic surgeon at The Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado, who has operated on her knees and arm and is affiliated with the U.S. Ski Team.
“He’s sort of been my guide. He helped me interview doctors from around the world to make sure that they were in it for the right reasons," Vonn said. “A lot of doctors said they could fix me and make me better. But generally when you say that right off the bat it’s probably not true.”
Hackett helped Vonn find Martin Roche, a South Florida-based orthopedist specializing in complex knee disorders.
Hackett already had performed a “preparation” surgery in July 2023 to try to slow down the need for a replacement while also preparing other parts of Vonn’s knee for an eventual replacement.
Then, in April, Roche performed a robot-assisted replacement, cutting off part of the bone in Vonn’s knee and replacing it with two titanium pieces.
“Once you commit to something you got to commit,” Vonn said. “Once they’re cutting you open that is what it is. So I did all the front-end research and now I’m reaping the rewards on the back end.”
But Vonn, who won a record 43 World Cup downhills before retiring in 2019, has not exactly been given a warm welcome back by some well-known retired skiers.
Two-time Olympic champion Michaela Dorfmeister suggested that “Vonn should see a psychologist,” adding on Austrian TV, “Does she want to kill herself?”
Austrian downhill great Franz Klammer said “she’s gone completely mad.”
Four-time overall World Cup champion Pirmin Zurbriggen added his name to the doubters when he told Swiss tabloid Blick on Wednesday that “there is a risk that Vonn will tear her artificial knee to pieces. And in such a way that she will never be able to do any sport properly for the rest of her life.”
“I have the feeling that Vonn hasn’t recognized the meaning and purpose of her other life in recent years,” Zurbriggen added. “She has probably suffered from no longer being a celebrated champion."
After Zurbriggen’s comments were published, Vonn hit back on social media.
“I’m getting pretty tired of people predicting negative things about my future,” she wrote Wednesday on X. “Did they all become doctors and I missed it, because they talk like they know more than the best doctors in the world.”
No woman older than 34 has won a World Cup race. But several men have performed well in the sport near or after 40.
Johan Clarey set the record for the oldest podium finisher with a second-place result in the famed Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria, at age 42 in January 2023.
“I’m not the first person to do it; I’m just maybe the first woman to do it in ski racing. Simone Biles is the perfect example of what can be done at an older age — and she’s not even old,” Vonn said of the gymnast who became the oldest woman to win the all-around Olympic title in nearly 75 years at the Paris Games this year — at 27.
“It’s just outside of the confines of what we believe is the right age for the sport," Vonn said. "I don’t think I’m reinventing the wheel. I’m just doing what I feel is right for me but at the same time continuing on what other women have done before me.”
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
Lindsey Vonn talks with a coach after competing in a Super G skiing race at Copper Mountain Ski Resort, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Copper Mountain, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Forerunner Lindsey Vonn finishes a run before a women's World Cup super-G ski race, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Lindsey Vonn prepares to be a forerunner at a women's World Cup downhill training run, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Beaver Creek. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Lindsey Vonn talks with a coach after competing in a Super G skiing race at Copper Mountain Ski Resort, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Copper Mountain, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Forerunner Lindsey Vonn skis before a women's World Cup super-G ski race, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Lindsey Vonn watches the other racers after her first downhill forerun on the Birds of Prey at the World Cup skiing event, Wednesday, Dec. 11, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily via AP)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota's Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever.
In a dramatic scene similar to those playing out across Minneapolis, agents captured a man in the home just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily armed federal agents. Along the residential street, protesters honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt the operation.
Video of the clash taken by The Associated Press showed some agents pushing back protesters while a distraught woman later emerged from the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man. Signed by an immigration officer, the document — unlike a warrant signed by a judge — does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. A warrant signed by an immigration officer only authorizes arrest in a public area.
Immigrant advocacy groups have conducted extensive “know-your-rights” campaigns urging people not to open their doors unless agents have a court order signed by a judge.
But within minutes of ramming the door in a neighborhood filled with single-family homes, the handcuffed man was led away.
More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News on Sunday that the administration would send additional federal agents to Minnesota to protect immigration officers and continue enforcement.
The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — is bracing for what is next after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer on Wednesday.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners Sunday in the neighborhood where Good was killed, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but residents remained anxious. On Monday, Minneapolis public schools will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said that the investigation into Good's shooting death should not be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened," Smith said on ABC’s "This Week."
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
"That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn't be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests in cities across the country over the weekend, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Oakland, California.
Contributing were Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis; Thomas Strong in Washington; Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio.
A woman gets into an altercation with a federal immigration officer as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A federal immigration officer deploys pepper spray as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A family member, center, reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bystanders are treated after being pepper sprayed as federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A family member reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Federal agents look on after detaining a person during a patrol in Minneapolis, Minn., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)
Bystanders react after a man was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand near a memorial at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
A man looks out of a car window after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Border Patrol agents detain a man, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
People shout toward Border Patrol agents making an arrest, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Protesters react as they visit a makeshift memorial during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
