Here's Why The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games Could Be Lindsey Vonn's Last Olympics

Team USA skier Lindsey Vonn was pretty emotional after she won the bronze medal in her signature downhill event on Wednesday, which has some people wondering when Lindsey Vonn will retire or if she has more shots at the gold in the next Winter Olympics in Beijing. She's been competing since she was 17 years old, so it would certainly be hard to retire now after having so much success in PyeongChang.

Sadly, though, the 33-year-old skier was the oldest woman to medal in Alpine skiing, according to NBC, which means that this could most definitely be her last Olympics. Or at least that's what she keeps saying. She said, according to NBC, "It’s sad. This is my last [Olympic] downhill. I wish I could keep going, you know? I had so much fun. I love what I do."

But given her history of injuries and how intense the training is, she doesn't seem to want to keep going for more medals in the future. She added, "My body just can’t — probably can’t take another four years. But I don’t know, I’m proud. I’m proud to have competed for my country. Proud to have given it my all. I’m proud to have come away with a medal.”

Vonn wasn't just emotional about this likely being her last downhill; she had dedicated this Olympic run to her grandfather, Don Kildow, a Korean war vet who also just happened to build her her first ski hill. He died in November, which is why you might have noticed his initials stamped on her helmet this year as a tribute. “I wanted to win so much because of him. But I still think I made him proud. Our family never gives up and I never gave up," Vonn added, according to NBC.

This was Vonn's first Olympics in eight years, after a knee injury kept her from competing in Sochi. Her first Winter Games were in Vancouver in 2010, when she won the first ever gold medal for an American woman in the downhill event. She also won the bronze in the super-G that year, too. That doesn't mean her big comeback to the Olympic stage this year wasn't easy by any means. First, Vonn live-tweeted her disastrous travels to PyeongChang, where she only made a brief appearance at the opening ceremony. Then, she didn't medal in her super-G event, much to the delight of all of her haters.

Yes, if you can believe it, a swarm of internet trolls surfaced when Vonn lost her first event since she had told CNN early on on during the Winter Games that she was representing her country, and not the current president. She said:

I take the Olympics very seriously and what they mean and what they represent, what walking under our flag means in the opening ceremony. I want to represent our country well. I don't think that there are a lot of people currently in our government that do that.

The Trump supporters tweeted that she was an "ungrateful snowflake" and that her initial loss was "karma" for being a Trump supporter.

Losing at might very well be your last Olympics and then having people come at you for it could not have been easy, but Vonn took it like the champion she is. A fan tweeted to her that she was getting upset reading all the hate geared toward what some people call the greatest female skier of her time, as The Washington Post put it.

Vonn assured her fans that she was doing just fine, despite the "Make America Great Again" trolls coming for her. Vonn tweeted, "Not everyone has to like me but my family loves me and I sleep well at night. I work hard and try to be the best person I can be. If they don’t like me their loss I guess... Thank you for the support."

She doubled down on her position in an interview with CBS News when they asked if she was going to walk back her opinions about the president. Vonn answered:

No, that's what bullies want you to do: They want to defeat you. And I'm not defeated. I'm the same. I stand by my values. And I'm not going to back down. I may not be as vocal right now with my opinions, but that doesn't mean that they've won, you know? I haven't changed my mind.

Now that she has the bronze medal in her historically best event, she really doesn't have to put up with anyone's nonsense. Who knows, maybe she has a comeback in her just to show them who's boss.

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