Despite Equal Prize Monies, Male Skiers Earn Significantly More than Women, Claims Lindsey Vonn

On average, women earn less than men in nearly every single occupation out there, and it turns out skiing is no exception.

Getting paid to ski is already “very, very difficult,” four-time U.S. Olympian Lindsey Vonn told Maverick Carter in an episode of “Kneading Dough.”

“If you are not in the top five or 10 in the world, you are struggling to not have to get a second job.”

While the prize money for races is the same, men in her field make significantly more than women, the downhill skier claims:

“All of our contracts are confidential, but I roughly know how much the men make and how much the women make. It is a pretty severe gap.”

For Vonn, who has three Olympic medals and four World Cup overall titles, the big money is made from lucrative endorsements. She has signed on with Red Bull, Rolex, GoPro and Under Armour, among others, and is worth an estimated $3 million.

The successful athlete says her hope is to “get women in ski racing more publicity and give them the push they need to make more money.”

And while the 33-year-old athlete has said that the 2018 PyeongChang games were her last Olympics, she’s not done competing. Vonn is the best women’s ski racer in history, with more World Cup victories than any other woman, but wants to be the winningest skier of all time.

“I literally am not going to stop skiing until I reach that mark, because I don’t like being the best female. I really don’t. I want to be the best of all time. Period,” she told Carter.