Lindsey Vonn isn’t asking for any sympathy after present process her fourth surgical procedure following her catastrophic 2026 Winter Olympics crash.
“Surgical procedure went nicely as we speak!” Fortunately I will lastly return to the US! As soon as I’m again I will provide you with extra updates and information about my harm… However till then, as I sit right here in my mattress reflecting, I’ve just a few ideas I’d prefer to share…” Vonn, 41, wrote by way of Instagram on Saturday, February 14, together with a video of the Olympian snowboarding.
“I’ve been studying numerous messages and feedback saying that what has occurred to me makes them unhappy,” Vonn continued. “Please, don’t be unhappy. Empathy, love and help I welcome with an open coronary heart, however please not unhappiness and sympathy. I hope as an alternative it provides you energy to maintain combating, as a result of that’s what I’m doing and that’s what I’ll proceed to do. At all times.”
Vonn added, “Once I suppose again on my crash, I didn’t stand within the beginning gate unaware of the potential penalties. I knew what I used to be doing. I selected to take a danger. Each skier in that beginning gate took the identical danger. As a result of even in case you are the strongest individual on the planet, the mountain at all times holds the playing cards.”
Group USA supporters and followers the world over have been following Vonn’s street to the 2026 Winter Olympics after she introduced her return to skilled snowboarding. (Vonn retired in 2019 following the World Championships in Sweden, however introduced her comeback in 2024.)
Whereas competing at a World Cup race in Switzerland on January 30, Vonn tore her ACL fully — simply 9 days earlier than Olympic competitors.
“After intensive consultations with docs, intense remedy, bodily checks in addition to snowboarding as we speak, I’ve decided I’m able to competing within the Olympic Downhill on Sunday,” Vonn mentioned on February 1, noting she deliberate to race even with out her ACL in tact. “In fact I’ll nonetheless have to do one coaching run, as is required to race on Sunday, however… I’m assured in my physique’s skill to carry out. Regardless of my accidents my knee is steady, I do not need swelling and my muscle mass are firing and reacting as they need to.”
Vonn took the slope on Sunday, February 8, for her girls’s downhill run. Sadly, tragedy struck 13 seconds into her run when she crashed and was ultimately airlifted from the course to an Italian hospital. Vonn subsequently “underwent an orthopedic operation to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg” and was “handled by a multidisciplinary group,” a press release launched by the Ca’ Foncello hospital mentioned on the time.
“I used to be keen to danger and push and sacrifice for one thing I knew I used to be completely able to doing,” Vonn continued on Saturday. “I’ll at all times take the chance of crashing whereas giving it my all, slightly not ski to my potential and have remorse. I by no means wish to cross [a] end line and say, ‘what if?’ And to be completely trustworthy, I used to be stronger bodily in that second than I’ve been usually prior to now. Actually stronger than I used to be once I ended [my] profession in 2019 the place I obtained a bronze medal within the World Championships.”
Lindsey Vonn was airlifted off the course after a crash in Switzerland, simply days earlier than she is scheduled to make her miraculous return to the Olympics. Vonn, 41, misplaced management throughout her World Cup Race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, on Friday, January 30, ultimately ending up tangled within the course’s security nets. After receiving medical help […]
Vonn added, “And mentally… Mentally I used to be excellent. Clear, targeted, hungry, aggressive but fully calm… simply as I had practiced over the previous few months once I was on the rostrum in each downhill this season. 2 wins and main the standings… that was all a check to organize me for the Olympics. Mentally, I used to be extra prepared than I had ever been.”
Vonn concluded her publish by stating that “simply because I used to be prepared” for the 2026 Winter Olympics “didn’t assure me something.”
“Nothing in life is assured. That’s the gamble of chasing your goals, you would possibly fall however in case you don’t strive you’ll by no means know,” she added. “So please, don’t really feel unhappy. The journey was well worth the fall. Once I shut my eyes at evening I don’t have regrets and the love I’ve for snowboarding stays. I’m nonetheless trying ahead to the second once I can stand on the highest of the mountain as soon as extra. And I’ll.”
