MILAN — No matter where she finished on Sunday morning, Lindsey Vonn was already a champion. Just nine days removed from a devastating crash that completely tore her left ACL, Under pristine blue Italian skies, Vonn skied in Milano Cortina’s challenging women’s downhill event, and performed better than anyone could have expected a week ago.
Starting 13th in a field of 36, facing the dramatic 2,572-meter Olympia Delle Tofane course, pushing out of the gate at high noon, Vonn almost immediately wrecked. Far below, the crowd watched in silence.
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Vonn remained prone on the ice for long minutes, her screams audible on camera.
Vonn’s fellow American Breezy Johnson, starting sixth, recovered from early struggles in her run to post a time of 1:36.10, claiming the lead early in the event.
Sunday marked the final act of Vonn’s remarkable journey, one whose sharp twists and frenetic turns matched any downhill course. Vonn, who won three Olympic medals over the course of the first phase of her career, retired in 2019, her body broken even though her spirit remained strong. Over the course of her career, she’d won more World Cup victories than any woman in history, but by the time of her retirement, those podiums were just a memory. Unable to even hike short distances without pain, Vonn reconciled herself to a life off the mountain, pursuing everything from reality TV stardom to philanthropy.
In 2024, she elected to undergo a partial knee replacement in the hopes of living the rest of her life without debilitating pain. But something amazing happened: Vonn realized that the pain, all the pain, was gone from her beleaguered knee. And an idea formed in her mind: Why not get back out there on the slopes and give it one more run?
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“I really thought when I retired in 2019, that was it,” Vonn said recently. “I had built an amazing life, I was really happy. But then after the replacement, I knew things were really different. My body felt so good, and I just kind of kept pushing myself further and further to see what I was capable of, and racing seemed like the logical next step.”
She’d spent the entire 2022 Beijing Olympics in a state of mild frustration, hearing from friends and fellow skiers about how the mountain there was made for her talents. So the fact that the 2026 Games would be held at Cortina d’Ampezzo — site of her first World Cup podium, and 11 more after that, including six wins — clinched it for Vonn. She would attempt a comeback unlike any other in skiing history.
“I don’t think I would have tried this comeback if the Olympics weren’t in Cortina,” Vonn said. “If it had been anywhere else, I would probably say it’s not worth it. But for me, there’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back, and it’s pulled me back one last time.”
Right out of the gate, Vonn faced criticism of her motivations, her perceived selfishness, even her mental state. Olympic gold medalist Franz Klammer declared that “She’s gone completely mad,” and that was one of the kinder critiques.
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But Vonn simply kept skiing, and soon enough, she began climbing the standings of World Cup events. She blew right past U.S. Ski and Snowboarding’s metrics for judging potential Olympic team members, first climbing onto podiums, and then claiming two more World Cup victories.
Along the way, she metamorphosed from a cute story and the centerpiece of NBC’s Olympic coverage into a legitimate medal threat. Ranked sixth in the World Cup standings just a week before the Games began, Vonn seemed like she was on the verge of a story that defied even fairytales.
And then: disaster. Just one week before the Opening Ceremony, on a Swiss slope that had already seen several wrecks, Vonn pinwheeled off the course and into a barrier. She limped to her feet, the agony on her face evident, and required airlifting from the course. Soon afterward, doctors told her that she’d completely torn her left ACL. Vonn’s Olympic comeback, it seemed, would be a nice story, but an ultimately unfinished one.
But Lindsey Vonn is, as the saying goes, built different. On Tuesday, four days after her crash and two days before her first scheduled downhill practice, Vonn announced that yes, her ACL was completely torn, and no, she would not be withdrawing from the Olympics.
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“This is not, obviously, what I had hoped for,” Vonn said. “I’ve been working really hard to come into these Games in a much different position. I know what my chances were before the crash, and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today, but I know there’s still a chance, and as long as there’s a chance, I will try.”
She later posted video of herself lifting weights and leaping on the ACL-less knee, and jabbed back at social media analysis of both her knee and her motivations.
So when Sunday morning dawned in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Vonn had the opportunity to create magic. And she did just that, simply by skiing her way into the starting gate. Everything that followed was simply the grace notes on a symphony.