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 The 30-year-old American brushed aside questions about this week's
split with golfer Tiger Woods when she was presented as an
ambassador of South Korea's first Winter Olympics and instead
focused on her on-piste ambitions.
"My goals for the next Olympics are to try to win gold medals," she
told a news conference in the South Korean capital on Thursday.
"In the last Olympics I competed in Vancouver and won the downhill.
I hope to improve upon those results or, if not, to match them.
"The site looks very challenging, looks like the downhill will be
very stiff with a lot of jumps, which I really like.
"So I am looking forward to see it with snow on and actually be able
to run the course, but so far it looks very good."
Vonn, also a former Super-G world champion, was robbed of her chance
to defend her Olympic downhill title at the 2014 Sochi Games when
she was forced to have two operations on her right knee.
She stormed back last season, however, to confirm her status as one
of the greatest alpine skiiers of all time.
The downhill and Super-G season titles she secured gave her 19 in
total, matching the record held by Swede Ingemar Stenmark, who is
the only skier to have won more World Cup races (86) than Vonn's 67.
"Injuries are definitely very tough, but I found over the course of
my career in my life that whenever you have a setback, you just have
to stay positive, and keep working hard and eventually things will
turnaround," she recalled
"Especially after my second knee surgery, there were a lot of bad
days and a lot of pain and the rehabilitation was difficult but I
kept my sight focused on skiing again.
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"That's what kept me through. So, if you are injured, you have to
find the goal and find what motivates you to be healthy again and
keep focusing on that."
Vonn said she was delighted to have been asked to become an
ambassador for the Pyeongchang Games.
"My goal, almost my entire career, I feel like has been to promote
ski racing not just in America, but across the world, I think it's
an amazing sport," she added.
"I will do my best to honor the Olympics spirit. Hopefully, it will
encourage kids to participate in sports, especially in Asia and
Korea."
Vonn announced the end of her three-year relationship with Woods on
Sunday and felt she had nothing to add to the statement she made
then.
"Yeah, I don't really want to talk about my personal life and I
think everything is in my Facebook post," she said.
(Writing by Nick Mulvenney; Editing by John O'Brien)
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