Summary Vonn is a four-time World Cup downhill season champion.
Four-time overall alpine World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn says she'll race a World Cup Giant Slalom here on Saturday, but skip Sunday's slalom as she continues to recover from illness.
At a press conference on Friday, Vonn said she was still regaining her strength after an intestinal illness that landed her in hospital for two days this month.
"I'm not going to lie - it was really bad. It was definitely the most pain I've been in, in my life," Vonn said. "I'm not the kind of person who goes to the hospital."
Vonn, the Olympic downhill gold medallist and a four-time World Cup downhill season champion, returned to training last week.
But she said she hasn't regained all of her stamina.
"I'm not really sure what to expect, but I'm excited to be able to race in my home state in front of the home crowd," she said. "Racing, to me, is the fun part. I'm not exactly expecting much from the results."
Despite it all, Vonn still sounded a bit wistful that she wasn't in Lake Louise, Canada, where men were preparing for their first speed races of the season.
She had petitioned the International Ski Federation (FIS) to race in a men's World Cup race and had hoped to do so in a downhill at Lake Louise, but FIS denied the request.
"Unfortunately, FIS made the decision that a woman cannot race with the men," Vonn said. "For me, the story is still ongoing. It's not over yet. There's still next year. I'm going to keep working hard to make my dream a reality."
If all goes well this weekend, Vonn expects to be in Lake Louise next week when it hosts women's World Cup races.
And the Calgary Herald reported this week that that Alpine Canada, the Canadian federation for the sport, was in preliminary discussions about organizing an exhbition event next December in which Vonn wold take on the world's top men skiers.
Vonn is backed by Red Bull, and Alpine Canada president Max Gartner has spoken with the energy drink company about helping stage the event, which would likely be a big television draw.
"Lindsey is just one of those athletes who are known outside of the scope of their sport," Gartner told the newspaper. "Those athletes only come around every once in a while where you have somebody who is much bigger than the sport.
"We don't want to let this die."
