"I will never forget"

Emotional day for former ski queen Vonn in Saalbach

Former ski queen Lindsey Vonn did not miss out on the World Cup final in Saalbach. The US-American experienced an "emotional day that I will never forget".

"I came to Austria to celebrate the retirement of two people who have helped me so much in my career and in my life: Robert Trenkwalder and Heinz Hämmerle," Vonn describes in her latest Instagram post.

Success story
When the former ski racer was 19 years old, Trenkwalder brought her to Red Bull - a true success story! "He believed in me and gave me the support I needed to achieve everything I hoped for in ski racing. He was there for the highs, but above all for the lows," says Vonn, thanking him for the "incredible memories".

Vonn and her "best team-mate"
Hämmerle had been responsible for Vonn's skis since 2009. "Together we have won 51 World Cup victories and three Olympic medals. We don't call him the 'magical Heinzi' for nothing, he always had the magic to make my skis fast," enthuses Vonn. "If you've ever heard someone cheering me on at the start, you've probably heard Heinzi. And if I cried at the finish, Heinzi probably cried too. I've never met anyone who cared as much about what he was doing as he did. He put just as much emotion and hard work into making my skis as I did into winning." For her, Hämmerle is "the best team-mate ever".

"I've never done that before"
 Together with Dominik Paris, Fritz Strobl, Tina Maze, Sofia Goggia, Alice Robinson and many more, Vonn brought the season to a close in Saalbach. The 39-year-old also snatched the big crystal globe from Marco Odermatt. Vonn quickly turned it into a beer glass: "I've never done that before!"