Personal Life
Vonn was born Lindsey Caroline Kildow in St. Paul, Minnesota, the daughter of Linda Anne (née Krohn) and Alan Lee Kildow. She was raised in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, in Burnsville. Vonn was on skis at age two, before moving into Erich Sailer's renowned development program at Buck Hill, which also produced slalom racer Kristina Koznick. Her father, who had been a national junior skiing champion before a knee injury at 18, "pushed" her very hard, according to Sailer.
When Vonn was ten years old, she met Olympic gold medalist ski racer Picabo Street, whom she considers her heroine and role model. Their meeting made such an impression on Street that she remembered the meeting and later served as Vonn's mentor in skiing. Vonn commuted to Colorado to train for several years before her family moved to Vail in the late 1990s.
Vonn attended University of Missouri High School, an online program through the university's Center for Distance and Independent Study.
Vonn appeared in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition that featured Winter Olympians in 2010. Vonn also made No. 59 on Maxim's Hot 100 list.
She married fellow 2002 Olympian and former U.S. Ski Team athlete Thomas Vonn on September 29, 2007, at the Silver Lake Lodge in Deer Valley, Utah. On November 27, 2011, it was announced that Lindsey and Thomas Vonn had begun divorce proceedings after four years of marriage.
Vonn frequently stays at the home of her friend and major competitor, Maria Riesch in Garmisch, Germany. Traditionally, Lindsey and Thomas Vonn spent Christmas Eve at the Riesch family home; Lindsey is fluent in German (including Austro-Bavarian). During the off-season, Vonn resides in Vail, Colorado. The most unusual of Vonn's trophies also lives in Kirchberg: Olympe the cow. Vonn won the oversized pet in 2005 in Val D'Isère. Vonn's nicknames are "Kildon", "Don Don" and "The Don." Her hobbies include cycling, tennis, reading, and watching NBC's Law & Order; Vonn appeared as a guest star in the final series episode ("Rubber Room") of Law & Order on May 24, 2010.
Vonn has battled depression since 2002 and sought medical treatment in 2008 after hitting a low point. She takes an anti-depressant to manage her symptoms.
Read more about this topic: Lindsey Vonn
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“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To ‘see the light’ too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)