Lindsey Vonn will race Saturday's World Cup giant slalom in Aspen

ASPEN  —Four-time World Cup overall champion Lindsey Vonn has recovered sufficiently from a scary intestinal illness that put her in a Vail hospital for two nights last week and will race Saturday's World Cup giant slalom here.

 "I'm really excited," Vonn said at a news conference Friday. "It's been definitely a really rough couple of weeks, but I've been working hard to get my strength back and to be ready for (Saturday). Not exactly sure what to expect, but I'm just excited to be able to race in my home state, in front of a home crowd."

Vonn said she lost some fitness that she will need to regain before she can compete in top form, so she isn't expecting much in the way of results here. She also said she

would skip Sunday's slalom to conserve energy with two downhills and a super-G scheduled next week in Lake Louise, Alberta.

Vonn said she got a "really bad stomach virus" while in New York to attend the U.S. Ski Team's annual fundraising ball there. The first course of antibiotics prescribed for her didn't work, so she went to the hospital in severe pain.

"I was just at a point where the pain was too severe, the medication I was getting before wasn't working and we needed to solve it," Vonn said.

Vonn returned to skiing on Monday.

"It was just tough, because I was in bed for over a week, so I definitely lost some strength and some cardio stamina," Vonn said. "As soon as I felt healthy enough, I started free skiing, and we just progressively worked into training."