Vonn faces toughest fight yet after devastating Olympic crash.

Lindsey Vonn is now having a long road back after a deadly crash at the Winter Olympics. At first, there were serious concerns about her injury. However, now, her doctors are sounding more hopeful, though they say the injury is still very serious.

Vonn came out of retirement in 2024 after stepping away from skiing in 2019. Before retiring, she was the most decorated female alpine skier in history. She had dealt with years of leg injuries and even competed in Italy after tearing her ACL less than two weeks before the Games. She hoped to return to the top after Mikaela Shiffrin broke her medal record.

Her comeback took a sudden turn during the downhill race. Just 13 seconds into her run, she clipped a gate and crashed. She suffered a complicated fracture in her left tibia. Emergency crews flew her to the hospital by helicopter. Soon after, concerns grew when a medical expert warned that amputation might be a possibility.

Surgeon Shares Cautious Optimism About Vonn

Lindsey Vonn (Photo Via Instagram)
Stefano Zanarella, a surgeon at Ca’ Foncello Hospital in Treviso, said his team handled one of the most delicate trauma cases they had seen. He told Corriere del Veneto that the staff coordinated every step of treatment carefully.

“We’re proud to have handled a delicate situation, without neglecting other daily emergencies,” Zanarella said. He added that his department performs five to six major trauma surgeries each day and treated about 10 fracture patients during the same weekend.

Doctors stabilized Vonn’s fracture, but her recovery will take time. Orthopaedic knee specialist Dr. Bertrand Sonnery-Cottett warned that recovery timelines remain unpredictable. He told RMC Sport, “The timeline is quite unpredictable. It will be months before she can walk normally again. Her goal now is first and foremost to keep her leg and be able to walk. I think we’re not yet at the stage of returning to high-level skiing. We’re not there yet, but some injuries like hers can end in amputation.”

Medical images showed an external fixator attached to her leg. Sonnery-Cottett explained that surgeons often use that device temporarily when they cannot fully repair a fracture right away.

Vonn has stayed open about the risks she accepted. She said, “My Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a storybook ending or a fairy tale, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it.” Moreover, she also admitted, “In Downhill ski racing, the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as five inches.”

She explained that she was skiing just a few inches too close to her planned path. Her arm caught on the inside of a gate, causing her to crash. She also made it clear that her earlier ACL injury had nothing to do with the accident.

Vonn now focuses on healing and facing a recovery that could last months or longer.