NEW YORK — For nine days last winter, conversations raged about whether Lindsey Vonn should start the Olympic downhill with a newly torn ACL. At 41, she had mounted a stunning comeback from retirement and a partial knee replacement, returning to the World Cup podium and leading the downhill standings. Her goal was to finish on a high note at Cortina d’Ampezzo, the slope where she’d earned many World Cup victories.
Thirteen seconds into the Olympic downhill, that plan collapsed in a violent crash. Television captured her cries as medics worked on the slope and a helicopter evacuated her. The wounds were severe: a complex fracture of the tibia in her left leg, cracks in the fibular head and tibial plateau, and a broken right ankle. Compartment syndrome developed, and surgeons performed an emergency fasciotomy — a procedure Vonn says likely prevented an amputation.
She spent several days in an Italian hospital, weeks confined to a wheelchair, and still relies on crutches. After multiple operations in Italy she was flown to the United States, where Colorado surgeons completed a six-hour operation. Doctors expect her recovery to last at least a year and to include planned procedures to remove metal from her left leg and later repair the torn ACL.
Vonn told NPR she wished parts of the process had unfolded differently but expressed no regrets. “My crashes, my obstacles, everything that I face in my life has always made me a better person,” she said. “This is where I am. I’m lucky. I’m happy. And I’m always going to do the best I can no matter what.”
Her return to top-level racing after retiring in 2019 had quieted many skeptics. The Hall of Famer — the first American woman to win Olympic downhill gold and one of the most decorated skiers ever — picked up two World Cup wins and several podiums after un-retiring. Less than a week before the Games, she crashed in a World Cup race in Switzerland and learned she’d torn her ACL. She initially told fans on Instagram the ACL tear “had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever,” though in conversations with NPR she later acknowledged the injury altered her racing strategy. Knee instability forced her to ski differently, sometimes pushing harder in sections to compensate where the knee would limit her.
Reactions to her choice to race ranged from admiration to harsh criticism. Some commentators and social media critics called it reckless or dismissed it as a publicity move; others argued she might be taking a spot from a younger athlete (under Olympic rules, Vonn and three other Americans had already earned the qualifying places). She was undeterred. On race morning at the Tofane Ski Center she felt grateful and emotional to be there. Thirteen seconds into her run, the dream ended.
The physical injuries were only part of the hardship. Early recovery was humbling for someone accustomed to independence. “The amount of time in a wheelchair and just being unable to do really anything without someone taking care of me — I’m a very independent person, and I don’t want to burden anybody. And I felt like I was a constant burden,” she said.
Vonn has been open about her rehabilitation, documenting much of it on social media — posting photos and videos of operations and long therapy sessions. She described sharing updates as therapeutic, a way to stay connected while isolated. “I’ve always been a really open person. I’m not someone that hides who I am… this is me with makeup, without makeup, healthy, not healthy — whatever it is, this is me,” she said.
As she slowly rejoined public life, she did a Vanity Fair photo shoot, saying it was the first time she felt more like herself, and traveled to New York for an educational initiative called Antibodies for Any Body, a partnership with pharmaceutical company Invivyd she had committed to before the crash.
Her medical plan calls for another surgery this fall to remove hardware from her left leg and further procedures later to address the ACL. Rehabilitation will demand countless hours of therapy. She hasn’t ruled out a return to the slopes — perhaps to find closure and reconnect with teammates she never saw after being airlifted from Cortina — but she recognizes the road back could be long.
Vonn reflected on the inherent risks of downhill skiing and the role injuries have played in her career, including a 2018 crash that damaged ligaments and a meniscus and helped prompt her initial retirement. She called this latest crash the most extreme and said its consequences remain significant. Yet she continues to emphasize resilience. About learning of the ACL tear before the Games, she said she “was not sad. I wasn’t angry. I was just like, okay, this is what we have.”
She also explained how the knee injury shaped her final run: she tried to calculate where she could push and where the torn ligament would force her to back off. In the end, a mistake that clipped a gate set off the tumble that changed everything.
Vonn says she feels fortunate overall and plans to keep sharing her recovery on social media. For now, her focus is on more surgeries, rehabilitation, and rebuilding independence — and, possibly one day, returning to the mountain where she had planned to finish on her own terms.