American ski great Lindsey Vonn not only won a bronze medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics, she also had a chance to scatter some of her grandfather’s ashes on a rock near the mountain where the downhill races were run.
Vonn’s grandfather Don Kildow served in the Army Corps of Engineers during the Korean War in the 1950s.
“I know that it would mean a lot to him to be back here, a part of him is in South Korea always,” says Vonn, who shared her story with The Associated Press and the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.
Vonn says she scattered parts of Kildow’s ashes “just a few days ago” on a rock that she was told was special when she visited South Korea last year to be named a Pyeongchang Olympic ambassador. She described the location as “right by the men’s downhill start.”
Vonn won a bronze medal in the downhill, but skied out of Thursday’s slalom leg of the Alpine combined in what was likely her last Olympic race. Later in the day, a group of elderly South Korean men gave her family some gifts and a letter of thanks to mark her grandfather’s service during the 1950-53 Korean War.
