Lindsey Vonn on Monday made her first public comments since her crash in Sunday’s women’s downhill at the Winter Olympics, saying she sustained a “complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly.” Vonn, the American Alpine skiing legend, hooked a gate and fell to the snow just 13 seconds into her run in the Olympic downhill, in a race that once looked like it might be a remarkable coronation after an unlikely return to the sport two years ago,
Vonn, the American Alpine skiing legend, hooked a gate and fell to the snow just 13 seconds into her run in the Olympic downhill, in a race that once looked like it might be a remarkable coronation after an unlikely return to the sport two years ago, but instead ended with a painful injury.
“While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets,” she wrote in her statement on Instagram. “Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget.”
In her second season back after a five-year retirement, Vonn had become the best speed skier in the world again, leading the World Cup downhill standings and tracking to be a favorite to win Olympic gold. But a week before the Olympics, she crashed in a World Cup race in Switzerland. Last Tuesday, she revealed she had a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) after the crash but said she intended compete at the Olympics anyway.
She did make it to the starting gate, but seconds later, the dream turned into disaster. Coming around a turn, she veered toward the edge of the course, hooked her arm around a gate, got turned sideways in midair and had no chance to land safely, landing in a cloud of snow and yelling in pain.
“The difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches,” she wrote on Instagram. “I was simply 5 inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash.”
In an inherently dangerous sport, with athletes traveling at high speeds down icy slopes, skiers are always riding on the edge to shave precious tenths of seconds off their runs. She was trying to do it with a severe ACL injury that — though not as damaging to an Alpine skier as it is to many other athletes — didn’t make it any easier either.
Vonn, though, insisted it was not a factor in the crash.
“My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever,” she wrote.
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These Olympics were supposed to be the culmination of Vonn’s comeback, which started in Nov. 2024 when she announced her return to ski racing. At the time, many in the skiing community questioned whether it was wise for a then-40-year-old to return to such a demanding sport, or whether she was even physically capable.
Vonn quickly assuaged those fears, landing in the top-six in two races in St. Anton, Austria, in Jan. 2025. Overall, her first season back was up-and-down, but it also proved she belonged back on the top circuit.
Vonn did not address her future plans. She had previously said this season would be her last.
“I tried. I dreamt. I jumped,” she wrote.
This is a breaking news story. More to come.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Olympics, Global Sports, Women's Olympics
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