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Four months after coming out of retirement, Lindsey Vonn returned to the podium on Sunday by earning silver in the super-G at the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho. Vonn's podium marks her first since March 2018, and at 40 years old she becomes the oldest woman to ever medal in a World Cup race.

After injuries forced her to retire midway through the 2019 season, Vonn made her return to World Cup competition following partial knee replacement surgery a year ago in an effort to try and end her career on her own terms at the 2026 Olympics in Northern Italy. After finishing fourth and missing out on a podium in St. Anton, Austria, Vonn finished the job in the World Cup Finals with her 138th career podium -- validating her decision to return to make a run at Milan-Cortina next year.

"This is the level that I know I can ski, and I know I can even do better than that," Vonn told NBC Sports. "It's been a rough season of people saying that I can't, that I'm too old, that I'm not good enough anymore. I think I proved everyone wrong.

"It's been a long road. I'm doing this because I love it, but that doesn't mean it's been easy. It's been really hard," Vonn said. "This year has just been really up and down, and it's been hard to stay positive sometimes -- especially because people are telling me that I should just quit, again -- but today was just, it meant everything to me.

"This is the road now to Cortina next year. And it's begun, I'm positive, I'm happy. This is why I'm here: So I can ski in front of my home crowd, my family, and do my country proud."

Over the next 11 months Vonn will seek a fitting end to a career that has seen her become one of the best skiiers in history. Vonn has 82 career World Cup wins -- behind only Mikaela Shiffrin (100) and Ingemar Stenmark (86) -- and three Olympic medals including gold at Vancouver in 2010.

The weekend as a whole in Sun Valley belonged to Italy's Federica Brignone, who clinched the overall championship for this season's women's World Cup after the cancellation of downhill races due to strong winds.