Lindsey Vonn has spent a lifetime chasing the next gate. At 41, after a fifth Olympics that ended in a devastating crash, she is still finding time for a different kind of start: the girls who look at her and see what is possible.
That mission is not new. It is the work she has called one of the best things to come out of her ski racing career. Through the Lindsey Vonn Foundation, #STRONGgirls camps, scholarships, and a growing web of mentorship, Vonn has spent more than a decade turning a 90-second childhood encounter into a pipeline of confidence for young women.
The spark was Picabo Street. Vonn was nine years old when she met the Olympic champion at an autograph signing in Minnesota. The exchange was brief. The effect was not. She went home and told her father she wanted to be an Olympian. Years later, she would say that moment is why the foundation exists: “I want the kids to see what is possible in their lives. They can do whatever they set their mind to, and I will help them get there.”
The foundation, launched in 2015, now sits at the center of that promise. It has awarded more than $1 million in scholarships since 2017, with grants of up to $5,000 for girls ages 10 to 18 pursuing sports or enrichment programs. Its signature #STRONGgirls camps focus on mind, body, relationships, confidence, grit, and leadership. Older students mentor younger ones. The curriculum is built to travel beyond the mountain.
“It’s not about skiing. It’s not about sports,” Vonn has said. “It’s about empowering the girl as a human, and sports and education are the conduits for that journey.”
That work did not pause when she returned to racing, and it has not paused in recovery. In early 2025 she launched Vonn Vision, aimed at giving young female winter athletes tools, funding, and mentorship she says she did not always have. “I’ve experienced firsthand the barriers women face in winter sports, and now it’s my mission to break them down. The next generation of female athletes should have the opportunities I didn’t when I was coming up.”
On the World Cup and at Cortina, the same instinct showed up in the start house. Teammates two decades younger found in her a veteran willing to pass on line knowledge, race craft, and perspective. She described it as a full-circle privilege: meeting athletes she had first signed books for as children, then racing beside them. “It’s my responsibility to try to pass along as much knowledge as I can,” she said. Downhill, she added, is an accumulation of knowledge. Someone had to hand it on.
The latest public chapter came on August 24, 2026, when the foundation held its annual fundraiser at the Grand Hyatt in Deer Valley. Vonn took the stage at a country-glam evening built around one idea: raising money so more girls from underserved communities can feel supported in chasing their own versions of a start gate. The foundation’s scholarships and empowerment programs use her story of grit and setback as part of the curriculum. The night was framed as securing the legacy of the next generation of female leaders, not just celebrating the last one.
The foundation has also expanded named opportunities, including the Erich Sailer Ski Scholarship honoring Vonn’s longtime coach — a mentor she has described as a dream-builder. Applications continue for girls in alpine racing and for broader sports and enrichment awards. Top recipients can be invited into a Youth Ambassador Program, closing the loop Vonn wants: girls who received help becoming the ones who give it.
Her advice to young athletes has stayed consistent through qualification, Olympic week, and the long rehab that followed. Believe in yourself when people say you cannot. Fall, then get back up. Give 100 percent whether the result is a podium or a stretcher. At USC’s Annenberg commencement in May 2026, only months after Cortina, she told graduates the daring is the education: try when the outcome is not guaranteed. “The only real failure in life is not trying.”
That is the through line. Medals made Vonn famous. Time with kids, camps, scholarships, and younger teammates is what she keeps choosing when the calendar is already full. “I want to create this cycle of paying it forward,” she has said. The mountain still matters. So does who gets to stand at the top of it next.
