voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. if you're talking to yourself, you have way too much time on your hands! in downhill, you're going 80 miles an hour. if you're talking to yourself, you're screwed! lindsey vonn, thank you very much forjoining us in miami.

i have to say, miami — not the most obvious place to find a ski racer. why are we in miami? i'm selling out! —— i'm thawing out! i'm thawing out! from all my years of ski racing, i'm finally thawing out. you're finding the warmth. lindsey, take us back to 2002 which was your first olympics, salt lake city. you were already a very redecorated skier by that stage. what did it mean, skiing in the olympics for the first time? when i was 17, going to salt lake city, you know, it was right after 9/11, it was this incredibly emotional and unifying moment for america and myself. you know, i dreamed about being olympian since i met picabo street when i was nine years old, and to walk into the stadium at the opening ceremony was so incredible. i remember my little pink hand—held video recorder, like, my camcorder, and ijust was so overwhelmed with emotion. it was such an incredible experience and it really set

the tone for the olympics that followed. i think it was probably one of the most emotional experiences of my life, outside of winning the games in vancouver. yeah, and when you won gold in vancouver, when you'd already won so many medals and you had so many trophies in your name, was it different, winning a gold at an olympics? it was really different. winning the olympics is something very special. and you know, i always say — people told me, "once you're "an olympic champion, you're always "an olympic champion." it's a really good feeling, you know? it's that stamp of validation and something that, until vancouver, i really missed, you know? i'd won everything and won world championships and world cup globes and all the titles, but i hadn't won the olympics, so to be able to do that in north america with the amount of pressure that i had, with the injury that i had leading up to the games, itjust — it solidified kind of everything in my career and it really set the tone for, you know, my awareness in the united states

because no—one really follows ski racing and to have won the olympics in north america was big. did it change your life in terms of your celebrity, your access to things, to the way people saw you? yeah, i mean, it was actually pretty crazy. i remember coming home from vancouver and being in the lax airport and all of a sudden, there was this enormous applause. i was like — i'm like, "has magic walked down?" "who's here?" "what's going on? " i look around and everyone�*s staring at me and applauding me in the terminal. chuckles. i was like, "this is insane. "this is crazy." i was on jay leno's first show back from his hiatus, i had paparazzi stalking me and it was like this kind of explosion that i did not expect because i had won 45 — or something like that — world cups before the olympics, but no—one cared about what happened before —

they only cared that i won vancouver. so, it was crazy. it was really crazy. when you're going down — when you're racing, take me to that moment — and it's a minute 30 or two minutes, depending on the race. what's your idealframe of mind during that minute 30? my idealframe of mind is the same state i was in when i won the olympics, and i think that was probably the best state of mind i'd ever been in in my career and it's very hard to repeat. and i think routine is something that's really important for athletes because you want to try to get in the same state of mind to allow you to be, you know, at least from my perspective, i always wanted to be aggressive yet calm, you know? ready and hyper aware but also... relaxed. it's such a contradiction. you want to be all these things at the same time.

then, you are through the starting gate and going down, are you talking to yourself? if you're talking to yourself, you have way too much time on your hands! laughs. in downhill, you're going 80 miles an hour. if you're talking to yourself, you're screwed! so, what's going through your mind? i am literally — it's like hyper speed, you know? i'm looking two gates ahead, i have visualised and memorised the course 100 times before i race it, so i know exactly where i want to go. but i'm always looking ahead, i'm searching for speed, i'm searching for speed. it's like i'm in this time warp and just focused on the next. "how do i get to the next gate faster?" it's just like forward drive and i'm always thinking over here. if i'm thinking to myself what i'm doing in the moment, i'm already late. can you describe what it feels like to go that fast down a mountain? to somebody who's not a skier, what's the closest anyone else comes to that?

i would say when you're not driving but you're on the highway, as a passenger, and going 70 miles an hour, stick your head out the window. that's what it feels like except you are in control, you're the one that's, you know — you don't have anything protecting you, you're the one that's bombing down the hill and again, that's part of the fun of it. i have this conversation with a lot of formula 1 drivers. they always say, "lindsey, your sport is so much "more dangerous because you are going those speeds "without any protection." i mean, we have a crappy, you know, back protector that pretty much does nothing and otherwise, it'sjust our helmet and a skintight speed suit. it's a 3mm suit. yeah, literally. so, when we crash, it really hurts. what did the adrenaline do for you? adrenaline is kind of like oxygen for me. i need it and it's actually, i think, the hardest thing for me now in this next chapter of life without ski racing is that i don't have it and i've to figure out a way to find that excitement and adventure

without racing downhill. you know, adrenaline is something that i feed off of, i love, i need it, it's what gets me going, you know? it's like — i don't know, i need a challenge, i need something to push me and life without ski racing is pretty boring, to be honest! to us, it looked from the outside almost easy for you. i mean, you were kind of glamorous and you were winning were winning everything. do you think people didn't realise how hard it was for you? how hard you worked physically, emotionally, mentally? i don't think many people in the world really understand what it takes to be at the top of a sport for a long period of time. i mean, roger federer was always my inspiration same

—— and idol and good friend but he makes — same thing, makes everything look so easy, he does not even sweat when on court... so annoying. but it takes hundreds of thousands of hours of training on the court, in the gym, to do what he does and make it look effortless and it's very similar in skiing, you know? i pride myself on how hard i worked, you know? i was — at my prime before my injuries, i was working out three times a day — before breakfast, after breakfast, afternoon. you know, my world revolved around "how "can i be a better and faster athlete?" "what is it going to take to beat the competition?" and when you are number one, it's actually a much harder position to be in because everyone is chasing you and you have to set the tone and if you stop working hard for one second, someone�*s going to pass you by. when you started having injuries and crashing, was there any part of your body that didn't feel pain when you were racing? when i had — you know, i was injured a lot before

i had my first surgery. you know, there was a lot of partially torn mcls and, you know, partially torn acl. i had a lot of injuries leading up to that big crash but it was all manageable. and when i crashed in 2013 and i tore my mcl and acl and had the tibial plateau fracture, it was kind of this domino effect where it set me on a totally different path. and from then on, i have been playing catch—up, trying to keep my body in working order, and it has been a huge challenge. my ribs were popping out because i had all of these different compensations with my hip because of my knee. i can't straighten my knee all the way. you know, there are so many things that i was constantly working on and i would say it was a major game of whac—a—mole, you know? when i got one thing fixed, something else would pop up and i would crash again

and something else would happen and it was a really long road and it made success very challenging and i think the front end of my career, before my injuries, was amazing but i think after was ten times harder than what i did before. a surgeon who looked at the x—rays of your knee said at 35, you had the knees of a 60—year—old. it never occurred to you before that to think, "my body is telling me i can't do this any more?" did you resist that feeling of your body saying, "lindsey, time's up." i generally resist anything that tells me i can't do something. so, even if it's my own body, i'm like, "you're not gonna "tell me what to do!" a knee? doesn't matter! i always knew, you know, it would come to that. my dad's had a knee replacement. he was a skier only until he was about 18 years old and then, became a lawyer. i knew that i'd be heading down that path pretty much no matter what i did.

so, i basically said, "i'm going to max my body out. "i'm gonna do as much as i can with the time i have. "hopefully, medicine will progress and i'll be bionic." you know, before you know it, i've already had a partial knee replacement, so i'm well on my way to being more bionic. but, you know, life isn't fun unless you take a couple of risks, right? so i don't have any regrets. i maximised what i had and, you know, i have some aches and pains but i think everyone does. you wrote — i mean, you wanted to be a great skier ever since you wrote that essay when you were eight years old, saying you wanted to be the greatest skier in the world. but you weren't particularly fast as a child when you were training. and i'm always fascinated by this — you know, people who are great athletes, is it nature or nurture, that old question. you were known as, what? a turtle ? which is not massively complementary to a skier, i'm thinking. yes, exactly.

did you know you were going to be great? what made you so confident, even at that young age, that you knew this was what you wanted to do? i don't know, you know? i always loved ski racing. i tried other sports. i was bad at all of them. gymnastics — horrible. i'm not built to be a gymnast. i tried ice—skating. you know, itried a lot of sports and my passion was always in skiing. and although i wasn't fast in the beginning and my coach did call me a turtle and i was made fun of, i loved it. and ijust had this goal of making it to the olympics and i never lost sight of that. i believed in everything that i was doing — and i think that's rare for a nine—year—old. but my dad always tells the story that, you know, he kind of went along with my goal of the olympics but when he saw me training in mount hood, it was lightning and raining and the lifts were shut down, everyone else was inside. i was out there by myself, hiking up the hill, skiing the course down and hiking back

up by myself, and my dad said, "maybe she does have what it takes to make it "to the olympics," so i don't know. i've always had the drive, i've always had the passion, i always believed in myself when no—one else did. i don't know where that comes from but it's just something that's always been inside me. when you were a child and your family moved around a lot to accommodate your skiing, was that another form of pressure for you, knowing that all your siblings and yourfamily were moving out to colorado? did that ever weigh on you? was that something you kind of were conscious of? i don't think i really grasped the sacrifices that my family was making until everyone moved out to colorado and my siblings were — my sister karin was in middle school and the triplets were in elementary school and they had a really hard time transitioning. and i knew the financial burden it was putting on my family. we weren't living in remotely the same type of, you know,

house we were in in minnesota. it was — it was hard. and i realised that everything was being put on my plate. you know, i was — the hopes and dreams of my family were riding on my shoulders and... i don't think it got to me in my performance. i think it made me more hyper—focused on working hard and making sure that everything i did was to be successful at ski racing. when there was a party — i had parties in my neighbour's house two doors down. i only went once. you know, it was something ijust didn't do because i knew that my family was sacrificing everything for me and i can't let that go to waste, you know, i can't put that in jeopardy by having fun. beyond the physical pressure, what was the mental pressure like being at the top of your game and needing to keep at the top of your game? and do you think that athletes are as prepared for that as they are for the physical side of what they're doing?

i think the mental pressure that athletes have is so much more challenging than the physical pressure. i mean, as athletes, we're always in great shape, you know? i would be hard—pressed to find an athlete that wasn't in prime physical condition. but i think it's the mental aspect that changes everything. everyone has pressure. but i feel like pressure�*s a privilege and it's also my perspective that i think helped me and guided me in my career. and that, i think, comes from my mother. you know, she had a stroke when she had me and she was physically disabled because of it. she never got to ski with me, she couldn't ride a bike, you know, all the things that mothers do with their kids, you know, my mum really struggled with. and so, every time i got injured or i felt this feeling of pressure, i would think, "well, you know, my mum never "complained.

"my mum overcame her adversities and she never got "the ability to come back from it." here i am and i have a great surgeon, great therapist, i can come back from my adversities and i should do it with a smile on my face, and i did. and again, like, pressure, it's the same thing — you use pressure to your advantage. it could be a huge driving force. but it's so easy to let it get to you. especially now with social media. when i won the olympics in vancouver, facebook was just kind of hitting its prime, and we weren't — i don't think i was faced with as much criticism as athletes are now. i think later in my career, my personal life became a huge topic of conversation and that really hurt me personally, but, you know, the amount of pressure that athletes have is quite — is quite incredible. how do you think younger athletes — you know, there are teenagers going to the olympics, right? there are 16—year—olds. how do you think they can prepare themselves?

it's interesting what you say about social media — how can they prepare themselves to deal with all of that, to have their life so under a microscope? i honestly don't know the answer to that. i know that the olympics is working on different a! programmes, like the ioc, and it will help eliminate that hate speech online because no athlete — you can say that you're not going to look at your social media during the olympics, but, like, let's be real — it's never gonna happen. every athlete is gonna look. and all it takes is one comment that you read that will just play in your head over and over again — it's happened to me many times. where something will have come up on social media and it will impact your physical performance? itjust gets in your head — you're not good enough, you're too old, you're washed up, all those things. especially towards the end of my career where it was hard, it became harder to to block out the noise.

and it's hard to teach a 17—year—old going to the olympics for the first time, "you have the olympics for the first time, "hey, you have "to compartmentalise this. you know, "you can't let it affect you." it's really a lot easier said than done. so, i think having resources for young athletes is really important, having, you know, therapists on hand so that people have someone to talk to. a lot of times, for me, i had depression and i never told anyone until i was in my mid 20s and had it when i was a teenager because i didn't really have those resources, i didn't feel like they had anyone to talk to and with social media, it's so much more important now to have those resources for athletes — and for kids, for that matter. someone they can talk to, an unbiased opinion or someone they can vent to. in 2019, when you retired, you said you were scared that you wouldn't find something — you know, what you were going to fill the hole from skiing — that you wouldn't find something you loved as much. has the process of leaving professional skiing behind been what you expected it to be?

i think it's harder than i expected it to be. and you expected it to be hard. i expected it to be hard, but it's still hard. you know, it's been, what? five years? and there is nothing — i've realised that there is nothing that is gonna fill the hole of ski racing. i am never going to go 85 miles an houragain. but things like — you know, for example, red bull did this really cool thing with me where i got to ski kitzbuhel, which is the hardest men's track in the world, and i'd always wanted to ski against the men when i was competing but never got the chance and i got to go fast again. i got to ski on the hardest course in the world and i was so happy. it made me so — like, to my core, it made me so happy. and when i got done with it, i'm like, "ok, i'm back to not "doing this any more." and it was almost, i think, one of the worst things for me because i got a sprinkle of what i used

to have and i don't have that any more. and i'll never have that, and that's really hard — like, that's just not something that goes away easily. so, what does skiing mean for you when it's not in kitzbuhel on the men's course? what does skiing mean for you today? today? what part of your life is it? today, skiing is like it was when i was a kid. you know, i love being on the mountain with my family, with my friends. i got to go skiing with my dad this winter and had so much fun. he still refuses to listen to me and wear a helmet, but that's another issue. but i love experiencing skiing with people. i love seeing other people enjoy the mountain the way i enjoy the mountain. you know, i always tell my friends, "it doesn't matter how good you are," you know? a lot of my friends get nervous skiing with me. "i'm not competing with you. "trust me, i would win!" we're just out here to have fun! and i have that same experience

when i was a kid and that's what drew me to the sport and it's different but i still love it. these machines look vaguely like sort of torture machines. oh, they�* re great. you know, you've the rope pull, the butt exercises, you know? you can start with no weight. does it give you a sense of satisfaction still? do you still — just being physically strong, gives you some of that...? it's not so much being physically strong, it's i need to accomplish something. right. in ski racing or any sport, you work hard, you have a result. you're getting faster in your sport, you're getting better, you're getting stronger. i don't have that type of sense of accomplishment in business. you know, i'm making investments. i don't know if my investments will pay off in five years or ten years or 15 years. i need something that is giving me a response right away and when i work out at the gym,

ifeel like i'm getting stronger, i accomplish something, ifeel good about myself, i've let out energy, i've been focused, you know, it's my meditation, so it's kind of a lot of things. do you think there will be a time when your body feels like a kind of age—appropriate body? i mean, do you think your body's ever going to be fully recovered from what you've put it through? ijust have to be smart and, you know, use the resources i have to recover and to try to slow down the ageing process as much as possible because my knees are already 50 or 60 years old. i'm kind of screwed. i'm speaking to you and you've just recently had another knee surgery. but it feels great! laughs. i feel like a new woman! you're bionic at this point. i've got titanium in my arms, i've got titanium in me knees, i've got two more joints that need titanium, but i'm ready for it. i have no fear of surgery,

so i'm not nervous about what surgeries i will need. i know i will need more. i know i'll need a full knee replacement on both sides. there's so much i can do now to help myself recover. as long as i stay strong and fit and keep that active lifestyle, that's waht�*s gonna keep me up. keep working out in the gym. exactly. no days off! thank you. hello there. friday was another pretty unsubtle day, but at least many areas saw at least some sunshine for a time —— friday was another pretty unsettled day, but at least many areas saw at least some sunshine for a time and through the afternoon, it didn't look too bad here in flamborough in east yorkshire — some hazy sunshine, a bit

of high cloud and the seas looking quite calm. won't look like that, mind you, for saturday because further southwards, we ended friday with this band of rain moving in and this area of rain is actually going to develop into a whole new area of low pressure. so, that's notjust going to be bringing some wet weather our way but also, it'll be quite windy at times as we go through saturday — particularly for england and wales, where we've got the tightly packed isobars with us. so, next few hours — quite a heavy rain across england and wales. there'll be some heavy showers for northern ireland and another zone of quite persistent rain setting up across northern areas of scotland. our temperatures to start off saturday morning generally around about double figures — about 10—13 for most — but as we start off saturday, there will be these areas of heavy rain associated with this developing low pressure system. gusty winds running into the 30s of miles an hour, knocking the edge off the temperatures. and even as the rain clears through, showers will follow. sunshine and showers for northern ireland, some persistent rain for northeast scotland — that could cause one or two issues here. and look at that — just 12 degrees in aberdeen. certainly a lot colder than it was on friday. now, the second half

of the weekend on the whole looks like being the better of the two days of the weekend but it's all relative, really. we start the day on a dry and sunny note but showers become pretty widespread through the afternoon, some of those turning heavy and thundery as well. temperatures for many areas still generally mid to high teens. could be a few areas that sneak a 20 but i suppose where thejuly sunshine comes out, it won't feel too bad. next week, if you're hoping for signs of change, you can forget that. we've got low pressures coming our way from the southwest. now, monday is another showery kind of day, so most areas will start the day dry with sunshine. the cloud then develops late morning into the early afternoon and then, we start to see some showers and thunderstorms break out in places. could be a few areas that miss those — maybe east anglia, south east england seeing largely dry weather. and a little bit warmer here as well — temperatures could get into the low 20s for a time. but overall next week, it is looking pretty unsettled with rain or showers around and temperatures still a little below average for the time of year. bye for now.

live from washington. this is bbc news. us presidentjoe biden insists he's still the person to defeat donald trump in a high stakes tv interview. the uk's new prime minister,

sir keir starmer, promises to rebuild the country "brick by brick" after a landslide election win for labour. changing a country's not like flicking a switch but have no doubt that the work of change begins immediately. and israel—hamas ceasefire talks ramp up — as the humanitarian crisis on the ground, deepens. hello i'm carl nasman. joe biden says he's "completely ruling out" leaving the us presidential election, despite mounting pressure from some within his own party. president biden's faltering performance against donald trump in last week's debate has seen a number of senior figures in the democratic party calling for him to make way for a younger candidate. in an exclusive interview with abc news anchor, george stephanopoulos, mr biden said he was thrown off by mr trump, but denied there was a wider issue.