Lindsey Vonn knew the risks. She knew all of them, and knew what her body could withstand, better than anyone else.
When she tore her left ACL nine days ago in a spill in Switzerland, as she was lifted by helicopter off the mountain in her final race before the 2026 Milano Cortina Games, it seemed like these Olympics lost its biggest star. It seemed like Vonn’s grand return from her 2019 retirement was over right before her biggest moment.
But Vonn refused to quit. Of course she couldn’t stop: she’s a skier. She has triumphed through agonizing injuries throughout her career; it’s what’s made Vonn one of the best ever.
Friday brought the first test, a mandatory preliminary run to qualify for Sunday’s final at Olympia delle Tofane. She skied it well, so well that she chose to do it again Saturday, leading to an even better result. The public’s uneasiness over Vonn’s initial trial run gave way to confidence and optimism after Saturday.
ACL be damned, why wouldn’t Vonn be confident? Why wouldn’t she think she could do what’s never been done before and win an Olympic medal on one good knee — and at 41 years old? Vonn has 84 World Cup titles to her name (third-most in history) and two of them came within the past two months.
Less than a minute before everything changed, that conviction of spirit was easy to see, as TV cameras caught an intense Vonn atop the starting gate, psyching herself up and entering into a mode of complete submission. Submission to the mountain, to gravity, to the danger. She clicked her poles, stomped her skis and pushed off, looking for one more epic race in a career filled with them.
This could’ve been the greatest of all.
Thirteen seconds later, it was horror.
Vonn’s line of approach — leaning on her right side, that knee supported by titanium, as opposed to the left, which has no functioning ACL — drifted too far. She flew into an orange gate at the crest of a quick hill, a catastrophic mistake, one that ended her Olympics comeback and bid for immortality in a millisecond.
Vonn’s momentum was awkwardly altered; she surely knew in that instant, when she felt the gate, it was done. Vonn briefly disappeared into a burst of snow that flashed to life as she violently skidded in pain, ending her Olympics career almost certainly for good. The crash is hard to watch. Vonn flipped to her side and, due to her high rate of speed, endured a brutal tumble for another 40-or-so meters before sliding out, splayed on her back, skis still affixed to her boots.
For anyone who was watching in real time on Peacock or other live feeds around the world, Vonn’s cries of torture were awful to hear. I can’t imagine how she must have felt there on the snow of the mighty Dolomites, screaming in agony.
Just like how I can’t imagine how she must have felt 15 seconds before everything changed. And you can’t imagine it either.
That’s at the heart of what may well be the biggest story of the 2026 Winter Games.
It’s easy to judge Vonn’s decision after seeing the crash, just as it was easy to judge her choice in the days leading up to the Olympics. But she knew the peril and position she was putting herself in. Of course she did: she’s a skier.
Vonn’s decision will be questioned and, given the nature of social media, widely lampooned.
The ghouls who mock Vonn’s lowest moment will miss the point.
If you’re quick to condemn her competing at 41 and on one fully functional knee, it’s best to understand a vital essence to downhill skiing and — I say this lovingly — the freaks who opt into one of the most dangerous sports in the world. These men and women are not wired like football players, hockey players or any other athlete in our most physically rigorous sports.
They’re so much more audacious than the rest.
Downhill skiing is the most dangerous alpine event of them all. It is as physically taxing as it is mentally challenging. The focus it takes to complete a run in under 100 seconds is as intense as any sport/activity known to man.
And the adrenaline rush is like no other.
The amount of courage, pain tolerance, endurance, fearlessness — and, yeah: ballsiness! — isn’t measurable. The phrase “built different” has become something of a cliché in recent years, but downhill skiers actually are Built Different. To race is to live, to live is to be on the mountain. Skiers spill down outrageous pitches, going faster on two planks than cars move on the interstate.
Most people don’t know what it feels like to fling yourself down a trail at 70, 75, 80-plus miles per hour on an icy course that’s trying to ruin you with every breath and turn. These lionhearts hurl over one jump after another, clearing 40, 50, 60-plus feet as they zip into the slipstream of space between the sky and the mountain. In a blink, they’re back on the pack, balancing on razor-sharp ski edges measured in millimeters.
Downhill skiers don’t fight gravity; they merely attempt to dance with it.
And every race brings the opportunity for glory and disaster. Skiing and golf couldn’t be farther apart with one exception: each sport forbids perfection from its maniacs. Every whoosh down is another chance to get better, even by micrometers. For as good as you want to be, there is always a next level to strive to, and then another, and then another and another until forever.
But the mountain always ultimately wins.
That’s what it takes, and what it means, to be a world-class downhill skier.
That’s why Vonn did what she did.
Injuries in this sport are inevitable. Vonn wasn’t the only skier airlifted off the mountain Sunday; Andorra’s Cande Moreno also had a nasty spill that required a helicopter escape.
Downhill skiing is reserved for only the boldest and bravest. Vonn’s legacy will be as much about her 80-plus World Cup wins and three Olympic medals as it will this instantly notorious crash. That’s how it always goes with ski racing. The only reason Vonn was in position to try and ski on Sunday was because of the mentality and insatiable fortitude that got her there after all these years.
If you can’t understand that, then you’ll never understand what makes Lindsey Vonn great to begin with.
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