Lindsey Vonn, 41, says she has “no regrets” about her Olympics comeback despite her crash during the women’s alpine downhill competition on Sunday.
The US alpine skier was about 13 seconds into her downhill run when she clipped a gate with her arm, lost control, and tumbled down the slope before landing on her back. She was then airlifted off the course and later underwent surgery at a local hospital.
Vonn’s fall at the Olympics on Sunday came just over a week after she tore her ACL in a crash at the Alpine Ski World Cup.
In a statement posted to her Instagram page on Monday, Vonn said her Olympic dreams did not end in the way she thought they would.
“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. My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever,” Vonn wrote in the caption of her post, which was accompanied by a photo taken moments before she lost control during Sunday’s race.
“Unfortunately, I sustained a complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly,” she said.
The opportunity to compete at the Olympics and knowing she had “a chance to win was a victory in and of itself,” she added.
“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,” Vonn wrote.
The athlete also said she was aware of all the risks involved in he sport.
“And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is the also the beauty of life; we can try,” Vonn wrote.
Vonn is a three-time Olympic medalist who made her debut at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. The Milan Cortina Games is her fifth Olympics.
She initially announced that she was retiring from the sport in 2019.
“My body is broken beyond repair and it isn’t letting me have the final season I dreamed of. My body is screaming at me to STOP and it’s time for me to listen,” Vonn wrote in a post on Instagram.
However, just months after undergoing a right-knee replacement surgery, Vonn told The New York Times in 2024 that she was planning to train with the US ski team again.
In the wake of her latest injury from Sunday’s crash, Vonn’s comeback has prompted concern from those closest to her, including her father.
“She’s 41 years old and this is the end of her career,” her father Alan Kildow told the AP on Monday. “There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it.”
Despite that, Kildow, who is a former ski racer himself, said his daughter is holding up emotionally.
“She’s a very strong individual,” Kildow said. “She knows physical pain and she understands the circumstances that she finds herself in. And she’s able to handle it. Better than I expected. She’s a very, very strong person. And so I think she’s handling it real well.”
He added that she won’t be returning to the Olympics, even to cheer on her teammates: “She will be going home at an appropriate point in time.”
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