Bronze for Vonn in final race of glittering career

Lindsey Vonn brought the curtain down on her career with a bronze medal in the ladies' downhill at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships on Sunday, as Ilka Stuhec defended her title in Are.

Vonn - the most successful female ski racer of all time - is retiring after injuries made competing too hard on her body, something that was not helped by a big crash in the super-G earlier in the week.

But the American was competitive in her final race and briefly led after going third on a shortened course, posting a time of one minute and 2.23 seconds despite a slow start.

The 34-year-old, who boasts a record 82 World Cup wins, survived the challenge of Olympic downhill champion Sofia Goggia but saw Stuhec go 0.49 seconds quicker.

IT’S OFFICIAL‼️Legend @lindseyvonn ends her storied career with a fairytale ending, landing on the podium in THIRD.WOW! @Are2019 #are2019 pic.twitter.com/GjFUjfFAUK
— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) February 10, 2019

Current World Cup leader Nicole Schmidhofer failed to trouble the top three and Corinne Suter - bronze medallist in the super-G - was the only other contender to better Vonn's time.

Vonn becomes the oldest woman to win a World Championships medal and is also the first female athlete to win a medal at six editions of the competition.

Stuhec, meanwhile, is the first woman to successfully defend the title since Maria Walliser did so in 1989.