02/09/26 11:10:00
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02/09 11:08 CST Lindsey Vonn's choice to race Olympic downhill on injured knee
questioned after crash
Lindsey Vonn's choice to race Olympic downhill on injured knee questioned after
crash
By ANDREW DAMPF and PAT GRAHAM
AP Sports Writers
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) --- The fallout from Lindsey Vonn's devastating
crash in the Olympic downhill included a key question: Given her severely
injured left knee, should she have even been allowed on a course that is
dangerous even to perfectly healthy skiers?
The resounding answer on social media was no. The answer from the skiing
community was yes.
Nine days before Sunday's crash, the 41-year-old American ruptured the ACL in
her left knee. It is an injury that sidelines pro athletes for months, but ski
racers have on occasion competed that way. She appeared stable in two downhill
training runs at the Milan Cortina Games.
When she arrived in Cortina last week, Vonn said she had consulted with her
team of physicians and trainers before deciding to move ahead with racing. The
International Ski and Snowboard Federation does not check on the injury
statuses of athletes.
"I firmly believe that this has to be decided by the individual athlete," FIS
president Johan Eliasch said Monday in Bormio. "And in her case, she certainly
knows her injuries on her body better than anybody else. And if you look around
here today with all the athletes, the athletes yesterday, every single athlete
has a small injury of some kind.
"What is also important for people to understand, that the accident that she
had yesterday, she was incredibly unlucky. It was a one in a 1,000," Eliasch
added. "She got too close to the gate, and she got stuck when she was in the
air in the gate and started rotating. No one can recover from that, unless you
do a 360. ... This is something which is part of ski racing. It's a dangerous
sport."
The Italian hospital in Treviso where Vonn was being treated said late Sunday
she had undergone surgery to repair a broken left leg. The U.S. Ski Team has
said only that Vonn "sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in
good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians."
The hospital initially said it would release an update Monday, then said
updates regarding Vonn's condition would come from her team.
Pierre Ducrey, the sports director for the International Olympic Committee,
noted Vonn was able to train and had experts counseling her decision.
"So from that point of view, I don't think we can say that she should or
shouldn't have participated. This decision was really hers and her team to
take," he said. "She made the decision and unfortunately it led to the injury,
but I think it's really the way that the decision gets made for every athlete
that participates to the downhill."
Onlookers on social media wondered if Vonn's ruptured ACL could have played a
factor in her crash near the top of the Olympia delle Tofana course, where she
has a World Cup record 12 wins. That maybe, on a healthy left knee, she would
not have clipped a gate and been able to stave off a crash.
"Totally incorrect," Vonn's teammate Keely Cashman --- who was knocked
unconsious in a serious crash five years ago --- said Monday. "People that
don't know ski racing don't really understand what happened yesterday. She
hooked her arm on the gate, which twisted her around. She was going probably 70
miles an hour, and so that twists your body around. That has nothing to do with
her ACL, nothing to with her knee. I think a lot of people are ridiculing that,
and a lot people don't (know) what's going on."
The hours after her crash was filled with opinions, mostly of the
second-guessing nature. Like, should someone have intervened?
"It's her choice," veteran skier Federica Brignone of Italy said. "If it's your
body, then you decide what to do, whether to race or not. It's not up to
others. Only you."
Brignone suffered multiple fractures in her tibial plateau and fibula bone in
her left leg during a crash in April and made it back to compete in the Olympic
downhill --- finishing 10th.
American downhiller Kyle Negomir echoed that thought.
"Lindsey's a grown woman, and the best speed skier to ever do this sport. If
she made her decision, I think she should absolutely be allowed to take that
risk," Negomir said. "She's obviously good enough that she's capable of pulling
it off. Just because it happened to not pan out yesterday doesn't mean that it
definitely wasn't a possibility that she could just crush it and have a perfect
run."
___
Graham reported from Bormio. AP Sports Writer Will Graves in Treviso and
Daniella Matar in Milan contributed to this report.
___
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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