3 min learnFeb 10, 2026 02:45 PM IST
American ski nice Lindsey Vonn stated she has “no regrets” after struggling a fancy tibia fracture in a dramatic crash through the girls’s downhill on the Winter Olympics in Cortina, an harm that can require a number of surgical procedures.
The 41-year-old, competing at her fifth and closing Olympic Video games, crashed simply 13 seconds into Sunday’s race after putting a gate whereas already racing with ruptured ligaments in her left knee. Thrown violently off steadiness, Vonn was left screaming in ache on the course and required extended medical consideration earlier than being airlifted to a hospital in Treviso.
Vonn, the 2010 Olympic downhill champion, later underwent surgical procedure on her fractured left leg.
“Yesterday my Olympic dream didn’t end the way in which I dreamt it will,” Vonn wrote in a publish on Instagram on Monday. “It wasn’t a storybook ending or a fairytale; it was simply life. I dared to dream and had labored so exhausting to attain it.”
“Whereas yesterday didn’t finish the way in which I had hoped, and regardless of the extreme bodily ache it induced, I’ve no regrets,” she added. “Standing within the beginning gate yesterday was an unimaginable feeling that I’ll always remember. Understanding I stood there having an opportunity to win was a victory in and of itself.”
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Vonn had torn the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her left knee simply 9 days earlier than the Video games started, including to an extended checklist of accidents sustained over a embellished however bodily punishing profession. She has additionally beforehand undergone a partial proper knee substitute.
The 2-time world champion insisted her accidents weren’t accountable for the crash. “The torn ACL and my earlier accidents had nothing to do with my crash in any way,” she stated.
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This mix of photographs exhibits the USA’ Lindsey Vonn crashing throughout an alpine ski girls’s downhill race, on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Picture/Jacquelyn Martin)
Her choice to compete regardless of the dangers prompted each widespread admiration for her braveness and criticism over the potential for long-term injury. Vonn addressed that debate immediately.
“It at all times was and at all times will probably be an extremely harmful sport,” she stated. “And just like ski racing, we take dangers in life.
“We dream. We love. We soar. And generally we fall. Typically our hearts are damaged. Typically we don’t obtain the goals we all know we may have. However that can also be the great thing about life; we are able to attempt.”
“I hope in the event you take away something from my journey, it’s that you simply all have the braveness to dare significantly,” Vonn added. “Life is just too brief to not take possibilities on your self. As a result of the one failure in life just isn’t attempting.
“I attempted. I dreamt. I jumped.”
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Vonn additionally obtained public help from fellow athletes. American teammate Keely Cashman stated critics misunderstood the character of the accident.