After rallying through knee surgery and a ruptured ACL, Lindsey Vonn’s dreams of an Olympic comeback came to a heartbreaking end on Sunday when the 41-year-old crashed seconds into the downhill event, her first outing at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina. Per the Associated Press, Vonn was airlifted off the mountain to a local clinic and transferred two hours south to the Ca’ Foncello hospital in Treviso where she had surgery to repair her broken left leg. The U.S. Ski Team told the outlet that Vonn is now “in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.”
A #WinterOlympics legend, always. 🤍
Lindsey Vonn’s legacy is forever part of Team USA. pic.twitter.com/kmDUyqFqvB
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) February 8, 2026
“She’ll be okay, but it’s going to be a bit of a process,” Anouk Patty, chief of sport for U.S. Ski and Snowboard, added. “This sport’s brutal, and people need to remember when they’re watching these athletes are throwing themselves down a mountain and going really, really fast.”
Vonn’s crash marks the end of what many thought would be a historic Olympic run. After sustaining several knee injuries during the World Championships in Åre, Sweden, Vonn retired in 2019. But in 2024, the gold medalist decided she wasn’t done yet: She underwent knee-replacement surgery that April and went on to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Just a week before the games began, Vonn suffered a crash that “completely” ruptured her ACL. Despite the setback, she determined she was “capable of competing,” as she wrote on Instagram.
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Ahead of the race, Vonn wrote in an Instagram post that she “can’t guarantee a good result,” adding, “But no matter what happens, I have already won.”
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“The outpouring of love and support over the past few days has been overwhelming in the best way,” she went on. “It has given me energy and helped me more than I can describe. Thank you.”
“Tragic. But it’s ski racing, I’m afraid,” Johan Eliasch, the president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation told the pool at the post-medal ceremony press conference in Milan on Sunday. “I can only say ‘thank you’ for what she has done for our sport, because this race has been the talk of the Games and it’s put our sport in the best possible light. I hope she will have a speedy recovery and be back on skis very soon.”
