"Great comeback": how the return of ski star Lindsey Vonn went

St. Moritz (Switzerland) - The entire skiing world looked to St. Moritz on Saturday morning: US-American Lindsey Vonn made her comeback to alpine skiing in the Super-G almost six years after her retirement.

At the age of 40 and with an artificial knee, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic champion raced into the top 15 straight away, finishing in 14th place with a time of 1:16.36 minutes, 1.18 seconds behind the winner Cornelia Hütter (32) from Austria.

Vonn thus finished ahead of the two German starters Emma Aicher (16th) and Kira Weidle-Winkelmann (22nd).

There was much discussion in the run-up to the race about Vonn's return in view of her age and injuries. One person who has absolutely no sympathy for this is Germany's skiing legend Felix Neureuther (40).

In his role as an expert, he said on ARD: "I'm just delighted, it's a great comeback. Let's leave her to it, she can do what she wants. Let's just be happy that such a great athlete is back," said Neureuther, taking up the cudgels for her.

Skiing needs faces like that and everyone should see it positively and not negatively.

And indeed, it was a comeback that left plenty of room for further spectacle.

The former glamor woman of the alpine skiing world was still cautious in the upper part of the course. She was almost a second behind right after the first intermediate time, but she skied brilliantly again on the other sections of the course.

Vonn conjured up a strong line in the snow and was quite rightly jubilant on the finishing slope. "She approached it carefully at the top. She loses out there, but when I think that she then accelerates normally, she still has an incredible amount of potential," said Neureuther happily, almost a little euphorically, looking ahead.

In her first competition in almost six years, she has shown that she can be extremely dangerous to the world's top skiers. From now on, the top skiers are likely to feel Vonn's breath on their necks again.