Troubled Vonn to give events a miss

MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO, Italy (AFP) –

Lindsey Vonn of the United States competes on December 16, 2012 in the first run of the women’s FIS World Cup giant slalom in the French Alps resort of Courchevel. Vonn is to miss the next four European meets the American team announced on Monday.

American ski great Lindsey Vonn is to miss the next four European meets the American team announced on Monday.

The 28-year-old four-time World Cup overall champion has had an up and down season, being hospitalised with a painful intestinal ailment and then bouncing back to win all three races at the Lake Louise meeting to become the first skier to win three World Cup races at the same venue in two different seasons.

However, she had a rare fall in the downhill at Val D’Isere at the weekend and said she felt tired on her Facebook page, and on Monday the US team confirmed that the reigning Olympic downhill champion was heading home for a rest.

“Struggling to find the energy I usually have…going to think hard over the next few days about my plan for the coming weeks and how to get strong again. Trying to stay positive,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

Only last week in a revealing interview with People magazine Vonn, who won double gold at the 2009 world championships in the downhill and Super-G, said she has been battling depression for years and takes anti-depressants.

However, Vonn, who filed for divorce late last year from her long-time coach and manager Thomas Vonn, told the magazine she is happier now than she has been in a long time.

Vonn, who with 57 wins is closing in on Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proll’s World Cup record of victories of 62, will miss this week’s meeting in Are in Sweden – which hosts a slalom and giant slalom – and Semmering which also hosts the same events.

Aside from that also off her schedule is the New Year’s Day parallel slalom in Munich and the slalom in Zagreb on January 4.

All being well she could return for the races in the Austrian resort of St Anton on January 12 and 13 which has her favoured super-G and a downhill disciplines scheduled.