Lindsey Vonn still in ‘survival mode’ after Olympic crash and unsure whether to retire

The 2010 Olympic downhill champion said she has “one more surgery left to take out the metal and to replace my [anterior cruciate ligament] ACL” and then a lengthy period of recuperation.

“Once I get my ACL fixed, then that’s another six months, so I have at least a year and a half ahead of me before I could really be back to 100%, even just training in the gym,” she added.

Vonn was racing at the Olympics in Cortina nine days after rupturing ligaments in her left knee when she struck a gate and crashed 13 seconds into her downhill run.

She was airlifted off the piste and diagnosed with a complex tibia fracture in her left leg.

“I’m still in survival mode. I just want to get through this phase and be able to assess where I am in my life,” said Vonn, who won her two world titles in 2009.

“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.”

Vonn, who has won 84 World Cup races and is second in the all-time women’s list behind fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin, suffered a number of serious leg injuries before initially retiring from the sport in 2019.

After having a partial right knee replacement, she announced her shock return in 2024.

Vonn had been tipped to win a medal at her fifth and final Olympics, and competed despite suffering the ACL injury in Switzerland in the last World Cup race before the Games.

She described the injury at the Games as “much different” to any of her previous ones in terms of “the severity of the injury and understanding that I could have lost my leg and how bad things were”.

She added: “I can deal with a lot of pain, but this was so extreme. It’s not even been in the universe of pain as what I’ve had before.”