Lindsey Vonn to enter World Cup ski races next weekend in Switzerland in her comeback at age 40

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. (AP) — Lindsey Vonn will return to World Cup ski racing next weekend for a pair of super-G events in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as she continues her comeback at 40 years old.

Vonn teased her return in an Instagram post through her sponsor, Red Bull, on Friday morning. She said, “I hear St. Moritz is pretty nice this time of year.” The U.S. Ski Team then confirmed she will race in St. Moritz.

She's won five of her 82 World Cup races on the course at St. Moritz. There will be super-G competitions next Saturday and Sunday.

It will be her first major race since February 2019, when she took third in the downhill during the world championships in Sweden. An assortment of injuries, including to her knee, sent her into retirement. But a partial knee replacement last April has her feeling good enough again to give racing another chance.

Vonn earned enough points to be eligible to compete on the World Cup circuit through a series of lower-level competitions last weekend in Copper Mountain, Colorado. She’s been testing out the course at Beaver Creek as a forerunner in training runs this week. She's not going to take the course Friday, but will again in a forerunning capacity ahead of the downhill on Saturday and the super-G on Sunday.

When Vonn left the tour, she had 82 World Cup wins — the record for a woman at the time and within reach of the all-time Alpine mark of 86 held by Swedish standout Ingemar Stenmark. The women’s record held by Vonn was eclipsed in January 2023 by Mikaela Shiffrin, whose 99 wins are more than any Alpine ski racer in the history of the sport.

“It’s awesome” to have Vonn back, said Czech Republic ski racer/snowboarder Ester Ledecka, who won the 2018 Olympic super-G in South Korea as Vonn finished tied for sixth. “It was for me a little bit sad to see her finishing her career. I thought, ‘Hey, you should finish it when you want to, not because your body is not capable to let you do your runs.' I’m very happy that she’s back and she’s feeling good and she’s happy.

“I think she’ll be also very fast. So, I’m very happy to have her around.”

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

Forerunner Lindsey Vonn skis during a women's World Cup downhill training run, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Beaver Creek. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Forerunner Lindsey Vonn, of the United States, skis down the course before the training runs at the women's World Cup downhill race, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Lindsey Vonn prepares to be a forerunner at a women's World Cup downhill training run, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Forerunner Lindsey Vonn skis during a women's World Cup downhill training run, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Beaver Creek. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Forerunner Lindsey Vonn, of the United States, skis down the course before the training runs at the women's World Cup downhill race, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Beaver Creek, Colo. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

WASHINGTON (AP) — McKinsey & Company consulting firm has agreed to pay $650 million to settle a federal investigation into its work for opioids manufacturer Purdue Pharma, according to court papers filed in Virginia on Friday.

As part of the deal with the U.S. Justice Department, McKinsey will avoid prosecution on criminal charges if it pays the sum and follows certain conditions for five years, including ceasing any work on the sale, marketing or promoting of controlled substances, according to the court papers.

A former McKinsey senior partner has also agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for deleting documents from his laptop after he became aware of investigations into Purdue Pharma, according to the filings.

McKinsey representatives didn't immediately respond to phone and email messages on Friday.

Court filings say Purdue paid McKinsey more than $93 million over 15 years for a number of products, including how to improve revenue from OxyContin.

One of the jobs, the papers said, was to identify which prescribers would generate the most additional prescriptions if Purdue salespeople focused on that. That resulted in prescriptions that “were not for a medically accepted indication, were unsafe, ineffective, and medically unnecessary, and that were often diverted for uses that lacked a legitimate medical purpose,” the filing said.

The company also tried to help Purdue get a say in shaping federal rules intended to ensure the benefits of addictive prescription drugs outweighed the risks. The government said in its new filings that that resulted in making high-dose OxyContin subject to the same oversight as lower-dose opioids and made training for prescribers voluntary rather than mandatory.

Since 2021, McKinsey has agreed to pay state and local governments about $765 million in settlements for its role in advising businesses on how to sell more of the powerful prescription painkillers amid a national opioid crisis.

The consulting firm also agreed last year to pay health care funds and insurance companies $78 million.

The U.S. has been in an addiction and overdose crisis for decades, linked to more than 80,000 deaths in recent years. For the past decade, most of the deaths have been attributed to illicit fentanyl, which is laced into many illegal drugs. Earlier in the epidemic, prescription pills were the primary cause of death.

Some advocates say the crisis was touched off when Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin hit the market in 1996.

Three Purdue executives pleaded guilty to misbranding charges in 2007 and the company agreed to pay a fine. The company pleaded guilty to criminal charges in 2020 and agreed to $8.3 billion in penalties and forfeitures — most of which will be waived as long as it executes a settlement through bankruptcy court that is still in the works.

McKinsey documents made public over the years describe Purdue using the consulting firm to help “turbocharge” opioid sales in 2013, as blowback against the opioid crisis meant that the company’s drugs were being prescribed less.

Mulvihill reported from Philadelphia.

FILE - OxyContin pills arranged for a photo at a pharmacy, Feb. 19, 2013 in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)

FILE - Protesters gather outside a courthouse on Friday, Aug. 2, 2019, in Boston, where a judge was to hear arguments in Massachusetts' lawsuit against Purdue Pharma over its role in the national drug epidemic. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)