Lindsey Vonn is still one other surgical procedure and several other months away from a full recovery from the February crashes earlier than and on the Winter Olympics that left her with a torn ACL and a severely damaged leg, the American Alpine snowboarding star stated Sunday.
“I still have another surgery, so I’m trying to get as strong as possible,” Vonn told TNT Sports in an interview on the U.S. Open tennis event. “And once I get my ACL, then I’ll have another long road ahead of me. But for now, I feel great, and I’m very thankful for that.”
Vonn tore her ACL in a crash in a World Cup race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, on Jan. 30, only a week earlier than the Olympics started. Even with the damage, she vowed to compete within the Milan Cortina Games and was within the beginning gate for the downhill on Feb. 8. Just 13 seconds into her run, although, she hooked a gate going over an increase and was sent spinning through the air before tumbling violently into the snow. She was airlifted off the mountain and brought to an area hospital, the place she spent eight days recovering.
Lindsey Vonn crashes out in girls’s downhill
Matt Slater
The Olympic crash left her with a “complex tibia fracture” that required a number of surgical procedures to save from being amputated. The ACL damage still has not been repaired, she stated Sunday.
“I’m hoping that I can have the (ACL) surgery in November, but it’ll be in the winter sometime, and then it’ll be another nine months until I’m fully recovered from that, so I can’t really look beyond that,” she stated. “I don’t really know what the future holds, but like I said, I’m just thankful for where I am right now.”
That timeline would imply Vonn, 41, is not going to be totally recovered till subsequent summer season or fall. She has repeatedly stated she doesn’t know whether or not she’s going to try to race once more.
“I may retire. I may never race again and that would be completely fine,” Vonn told the Associated Press in April. “But I’m not in a position emotionally to make that decision at this point.”
Vonn’s crash simply seconds into her downhill run at February’s Olympics left her with a severely damaged leg as well as to the torn ACL she had suffered every week earlier. (Jacquelyn Martin / AP)
Vonn was already a legendary determine in Alpine snowboarding when she retired in 2019 due to the mounting toll of accidents in a sport famously rife with them. She was a three-time Olympic medalist, together with gold within the downhill in 2010, and winner of a document 20 crystal globes — the award given to the season-long winners in every self-discipline and general.
A proper knee substitute in 2024 left her pain-free and considering a return to ski racing. She introduced her comeback in October 2024 and returned to World Cup races by December of that 12 months. At the season-end World Cup finals in March 2025, she made it again to a podium with a second-place end within the super-G in Sun Valley, Idaho.
That outcome was only the start. Last December, Vonn won the season-opening downhill in St. Moritz, Switzerland, her first World Cup victory in practically eight years. A month later, in Austria, she scored another downhill win — her 84th profession World Cup victory, greater than any pace skier in historical past and trailing solely slalom stars Mikaela Shiffrin of the U.S. and Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden on the all-time checklist. She completed no worse than fourth in any of her first eight World Cup races, making her a transparent medal favourite because the Olympics approached.
Then got here Crans-Montana. In the ultimate World Cup race earlier than the Winter Games, simply 9 days earlier than the Olympic downhill, Vonn slipped round an early sharp flip, fell to the snow and slid into the netting. She received up and skied down however was clearly in ache. Days later, she revealed she had torn her ACL in her left knee within the crash however stated she would still compete on the Olympics. (An ACL tear will be a more manageable injury for skiers in contrast to different sports activities.)
In Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, two coaching classes had been profitable, and Vonn in the end achieved the objective she had set in her inconceivable comeback — making it to the beginning gate for the Olympic downhill — earlier than the early crash introduced a brutal finish to her dream of one other Olympic medal.
“My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever,” she stated in a social media submit the day after her Olympic crash. “While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets. Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget.”