The Olympic downhill legend posted a summer recap on Instagram that included a swimming pool kiss with the French racer, ending months of speculation.
Lindsey Vonn didn't announce anything. She just posted a summer recap on Instagram, and there it was, tucked among the beach shots and the sunsets: a kiss with French alpine skier Matthieu Bailet, in a swimming pool, no less.
The caption was almost bored about it. "About that time for a summer recap... Pt 1," she wrote on September 23. Bailet replied within minutes, "Can't wait to see the summer recap part 2," then reposted the whole thing to his own stories with Olivia Dean's So Easy (To Fall In Love) playing underneath. Subtle it was not.
This is the first time either of them has said anything on the record about a relationship that's been fuelled by paparazzi sightings since spring. The two were photographed at a New York diner around the time of this year's Met Gala, then again in SoHo, on the subway, and at a Broadway showing of The Outsiders. Sources described them as getting to know each other back then. Neither confirmed nor denied it for months.
Who is Matthieu Bailet
Bailet is 30, from Nice, and has been racing on the World Cup circuit since his debut in 2016. Downhill and super-G are his events. He competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympics and picked up his first World Cup podium in 2021, finishing second in a super-G in Australia. His sister, Margot Bailet, raced professionally before she retired, and he grew up around the sport because of her.
Vonn's own 2026 hasn't been easy. She crashed hard at the Winter Olympics this year, seconds into her downhill run, and came out of it with a complex tibia fracture and a torn ACL. Surgery followed, then months of rehab, weeks in a wheelchair before she graduated to crutches. Bailet, being a skier himself, understood exactly what that recovery looked like from the inside, and the two reportedly grew close through it.
The timing tracks with her split from businessman Diego Osorio in 2025. Whatever was building between her and Bailet over the summer clearly outlasted the paparazzi photos and the no-comments.
Neither Vonn nor Bailet has said much beyond the post itself. No interviews, no follow-up statements, nothing beyond a caption and a comment. Fans have already started dissecting the photo dump for clues about how long this has actually been going on, and Bailet's tease of a "part 2" suggests there's more coming whenever Vonn decides to post it.
For now, that's the whole story: a recap, a kiss, a song choice. Whether Vonn shows up with him at any competition this season is the next thing worth watching.
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