Lindsey Vonn’s hopes of claiming the fourth Olympic medal of her career vanished at the first attempt on Sunday after a brutal crash in the Milan-Cortina downhill final which left her with a broken leg.
AFP sport looks at what happened and what’s next for the 41-year-old American ski star:
Dream ends in cries of pain
Vonn approached the start gate on Sunday just nine days after rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in the last World Cup downhill before the top women’s skiers decamped to Cortina d’Ampezzo for the Olympics.
She, and her coach Aksel Lund Svindal, had insisted she could compete for medals after completing two training runs in Italy. Indeed, the American clocked the third fastest time in Saturday’s shortened session.
But competition is another matter entirely and with eventual gold winner Breezy Johnson’s leading time to aim for, Vonn had to push harder.
Just 13 seconds into her run Vonn clipped a gate flag and span out of control, landing on the snow face first and then sliding down the Olimpia delle Tofane piste, her skis still attached to her boots.
It was immediately clear from the nature of the fall and Vonn’s cries of pain that this was a serious crash and that there was very little chance of seeing her again at the Milan-Cortina Games.
A race too far?
Vonn’s attempt to compete at the Olympics looked risky given the extent of her injury, even wearing a brace designed to stabilise her injured knee.
Rivals and teammates all spoke of the inherent risks in alpine skiing, and in particular the downhill, in which athletes regularly reach speeds of over 120 kilometres per hour (74 miles per hour).
Johnson, who tried and failed to ski the Tofane piste with an injured ACL in 2022, described the impulse to compete even in precarious physical condition as a form of “madness” common to top skiers.
“It can hurt you so badly but you keep coming back,” she told reporters.
Johan Eliasch, the head of the International Ski Federation, said on Monday of Vonn’s decision to compete in the fateful downhill: “This has to be decided by the individual athlete.
“What is also important for people to understand is that the accident that she had yesterday, she was incredibly unlucky, one in a thousand,” Eliasch added.
“This is something which is part of ski racing and it’s a dangerous sport.
Pierre Ducrey, the International Olympic Committee’s sport director, said: “She was able to train and made the choice with the excellent team that she has to take part. So from that point of view, I don’t think we can say that she should or shouldn’t have participated.”
Now what?
Luc Alphand, a three-time winner of the men’s downhill World Cuo title, suggested that the fact that Vonn’s skis did not detach from her boots increases the chances of further damage to knees which have already seen enough hurt to last a lifetime.
The Frenchman told AFP that her crash came about due to a technical error that could have been down to technical error and was made worse by a lack of speed.
“They were going at 80-90kph, which is not very fast,” said Alphand.
“Because there isn’t enough speed, the skis don’t release completely… The skis are really tightly bound and their leverage is enormous. They are 2.15 metres (7 feet) long and heavy, and that causes damage.”
Vonn underwent surgery on Sunday to stabilise the leg fracture and it looks likely that she will require more surgery before she leaves the Ca’ Foncello hospital in Treviso.
So far only the fracture has been confirmed by the USA Olympic team but that will likely be enough on its own to bring an end to what had been a phenomenal season in which she still tops the World Cup downhill standings.
The current World Cup season finishes in less than two month’s time, and after that Vonn will have to decide whether, into her fifth decade, she will bring down the curtain on a career that has made her one of the most recognisable faces in world sport.
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