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Lindsey Vonn is recovering from a serious leg injury sustained during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics downhill race, potentially facing retirement. She is unsure if she will race again, citing the severity of the injury and emotional toll.
Lindsey Vonn is still recovering physically and emotionally from her frightening crash at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. For now, the tough decisions about the future can wait.
— one that nearly led to a leg amputation — in the women's downhill skiing race on February 8. So if the 41-year-old races again — and she is not ready to make that decision — a return is at least a year and a half away, Vonn told The Associated Press in an interview this week.
"I may retire, I may never race again, and that would be completely fine, but I'm not in a position emotionally to make that decision at this point. " Vonn thinks she would have returned to retirement had she been able to complete a comeback season that rivalled one of the best of her career.
She ended a six-year absence from the sport largely to race at Cortina, Italy, one of her favourite courses, and the venue for the Milano Cortina games. The winner of three Olympic medals, including a downhill gold in 2010, crashed just 13 seconds into the race and suffered a complex tibia fracture,and ending a season in which she led the World Cup downhill standings and had not finished worse than fourth in any race.
Vonn has returned from an assortment of injuries before — she has a titanium implant in her right knee — but this one was different. The pain was different. The eight surgeries are just one shy of the total she had for all the others combined.
"It's a much different injury in that way, again, like the severity of the injury and understanding that I could have lost my leg and how bad things were," Vonn said. "I can deal with a lot of pain, but this was so extreme. It's not even been in the universe of pain with this injury as what I've had before.
"Lindsey Vonn's shocking downhill crash at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games was always a possibility given the American was competing just nine days after rupturing her ACL. But it was never going to stop her from trying. Vonn is making progress in and out of the gym, though not as quickly as she would like.
She has moved beyond a wheelchair and is now on crutches, admitting she is weary of both, and next week will be able to begin walking short distances. She is able to travel again, making a trip to New York this week to discuss her support for the biopharmaceutical company Invivyd's "Antibodies for Any Body" campaign, and she has a holiday planned.
Vonn said she has not spoken to her doctor about what a return to skiing would look like, saying they both prefer to focus on this phase of her recovery.
"Regardless, nothing would really happen until 2027-28 because I still have one more surgery left to take out the metal and to replace my ACL. That still needs to happen," Vonn said.
"Once I get my ACL fixed, then that's another six months, so I have at least, I would say, a year and a half ahead of me before I could really be back to 100 per cent, even just training in the gym. "It was only a day after her crash, when she was still in the hospital, that her father said her career would be over if it were up to him. "He means the best.
He forgot the cardinal rule with me is that if you don't want me to do something, you shouldn't tell me I can't," Vonn said. Vonn has never shied away from taking chances: she raced in the Olympics a little more than a week after tearing her ACL.
"Downhill skiing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world, and that's a risk that I've always taken happily. This is the result and I don't regret it," said Vonn, who noted she had done all she could to be fully prepped for the race.
"I don't want a do-over. " ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that's making headlines. For now, Vonn said she is focused simply on getting her leg healthy.
Only after that is done can she start thinking about a career that may or may not be over.
"I'm still, like I said, in survival mode. I just want to get through this phase and be able to assess where I am in my life," said Vonn, whose 84 World Cup wins are second-most among women, trailing only teammate Mikaela Shiffrin .
"And take count of what I've done and take count of what could be and make decisions in a much better place than where I am now. "I don't want to make a decision now because I think that would be rash and probably too emotional and I don't want to make a mistake, you know? "Sports content to make you think... or allow you not to. A newsletter delivered each Saturday.
Lindsey Vonn Winter Olympics Skiing Injury Retirement
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