Former Olympic gold medalist and world champion Lindsey Vonn will return to skiing, she announced Thursday.

He said in an interview He told The New York Times that his return was not planned and that he only reconsidered after successful knee replacement surgery seven months ago, relieving the pain that led to his retirement.

“I try not to get too ahead of myself because there are so many hoops to jump through,” he said. “Obviously, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t hope to race. I have aspirations. I like to go fast. How fast can I go? I don’t know.”

Vonn, 40, last competed professionally at the FIS World Alpine Ski Championships in Sweden in February 2019, where she won a bronze medal in the women’s downhill race, becoming the oldest woman to medal at a world championships.

That same month, ahead of the competition, Vonn announced her retirement, citing injuries.

“The unfortunate truth is that my mind and body do not agree. After many sleepless nights, I have finally accepted that I cannot continue ski racing,” Vonn wrote in her announcement on February 1, 2019.

He added: “Over the past few years I have had more injuries and surgeries than I care to admit. I have always pushed the limits of ski racing and this has led to both incredible feats and dramatic crashes.”

But when Vonn returned to skiing this year, 10 weeks after her surgery, “I had a smile so wide it was coming through the back of my helmet,” she told the Times.

Vonn has won three Olympic medals, the last of which was in her last Olympics in 2018. She won her only Olympic gold in the women’s downhill event in 2010.

When she retired, Vonn became the winningest woman in skiing with 82 World Cup victories (a record that has since been broken by American Mikaela Shiffrin).

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Vonn was a dominant figure in the sport until injuries slowed her down.

He won three World Cups in a row from 2008 to 2010, then won another in 2012. He won races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing. Her 43 wins in the downhill race are the most by any skier, male or female, while there were also 28 wins in the super-G.

However, injuries took a toll on him in the years leading up to his retirement.

At the 2013 World Championships, Vonn tore the ACL and MCL in her right knee and broke her right leg in a crash during the super-G. Later that year, he re-injured his anterior cruciate ligament during training and ultimately did not participate in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

In August 2015, Vonn broke her ankle. The following February, he fractured his knee and ended the World Cup season in first place with eight races remaining.

In November 2016, Vonn broke her right arm. Two years later he tore a ligament and suffered three more fractures in his left knee.

In April of this year, Vonn announced that she had undergone knee replacement surgery.

Rumors of Vonn’s comeback have been circulating since October, when she was spotted training in Austria.

“I was able to watch Lindsey Vonn train on the Rettenbach glacier, gliding around the bends very assertively,” Austrian head sprint coach Sepp Brunner told Swiss newspaper Blick.

Former German world champion Felix Neureuther told Blick: “When I first heard the rumor of Lindsey’s comeback three days ago, I could not even imagine that you could ski so fast with an artificial knee joint. “But when I look at it from a distance, I say that if there is anyone who can do what seems impossible, it is the only Lindsey Vonn.”

This article was first published on: NBCNews.com