Lindsey Vonn’s entire skiing career has been built on tracing the razor’s edge between glory and disaster. She has stayed on the glorious side more often than not, winning a record 45 World Cup downhill races. She has also trespassed into disaster territory, her body bearing the scars of several bone-breaking, ligament-tearing crashes.
It’s how she is wired to compete. Even in a profession predicated on embracing risk, Vonn’s fearlessness is an outlier. Having mounted an unprecedented comeback in her 40s, she is painfully aware of the potential for physical ruin embedded in her approach to racing. She still cannot back away from that razor’s edge.
“I need to be able to push the limits in a way that the other women are not willing to,” Vonn said in October.
Did she push the limits too far last Friday? Skiing on a partially replaced right knee, Vonn’s bid for her first Olympic medal since 2018 was thrown into doubt.
On the downhill course at Crans-Montana in Switzerland, just a week before the Milan Cortina Olympics begin, disaster—or something adjacent to it—struck. Flying unevenly over a jump, Vonn suddenly raised her right arm above her body, a desperate attempt to make a balanced landing. She couldn’t do it, skidding into a turn on the back of her skis and careening into the course’s boundary webbing. It was the third crash out of six skiers to that point amid questionable conditions and visibility, prompting postponement of the event.
Vonn grabbed her left knee—not the one that has the partial titanium replacement—and skied slowly to the end of the course. From there, she was airlifted away for medical evaluation. Later Friday she issued a statement on her Instagram account acknowledging the knee injury but declaring, “My Olympic dream is not over.”
Still, the second guessing came quickly: Why did race organizers go ahead despite potential treacherous conditions? Why didn’t Vonn drop out, with the climactic event of her career so close and a low bib number (and corresponding early starting slot) seemingly secure for the Olympic downhill?
Or, the even larger question: Why, at age 41, with a rebuilt knee, after six years away from the sport, is Vonn doing this at all?
“I knew that I could compete,” she said three months ago. “I knew the way I felt on my skis, and I never stopped believing in that. I believe that I’m meant to be in this position. I believe that my hard work will pay off, and I believe that Cortina is a perfect way to end my career.”
The perfect ending is in peril. Her massive fan base—and every executive at NBC, which has relentlessly promoted her as one of the faces of these Winter Games—will be holding their collective breath this week.
Vonn is scheduled to attend a U.S. Ski press conference in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Tuesday, in which she should provide an update on her status. Downhill training runs in Cortina begin Thursday. The Olympic flame is lit Friday, and the downhill competition is Feb. 8. Don’t bet against her being in the starting gate.
“It’s not over,” she posted Friday after the crash, “until it’s over.”
A Partial Knee Replacement Spurs an Epic Comback
Vonn raced in her first Olympics in 2002, at age 17—a lifetime ago as a prodigy out of Minnesota. She made it back three more times, winning a gold medal (downhill) and a bronze (Super-G) in ’10 in Vancouver and another bronze medal (downhill) in ’18 in PyeongChang. Combined with her World Cup exploits, she established herself as an all-time great.
Her spirit was willing to continue, but her broken body wouldn’t allow it. She retired in 2019, ceding the mountains to a younger generation.
“I was a shell of a human,” she said. “When I retired, I was skiing with two knee braces, no ACL and three fractures. I was very proud of what I accomplished, but I mentally could have gone much longer. I just physically couldn’t continue.”
Viewing the 2022 Beijing Olympics as a passive spectator was difficult—especially when friends and colleagues texted her saying that she would have dominated that course. Vonn threw herself into business pursuits and other activities, but she missed the adrenaline that is intrinsic to her sport. Mostly, though, she missed simply being able to move without pain.
In April 2024, Dr. Martin Roche of the Hospital for Special Surgery in West Palm Beach, Fla., cut open Vonn’s knee and, with robotic assistance, inserted titanium parts to replace the wreckage within. Ligament tears and a fractured tibial plateau in that knee had been repaired more than a decade earlier, but the chronic wear and tear thereafter left her in constant pain. She needed new parts—not necessarily to ski again, but to have an active lifestyle in the latter half of her life.
The benefits from the surgery were even better—and faster—than expected. Before long, Vonn could ride a horse. She could wakeboard. The more positive the recovery went, the more she started thinking about a comeback on snow.
Vonn’s return to skiing was made possible by a partial knee replacement. | Christopher Creveling-Imagn Images
Vonn’s doctors gave her a green light, essentially sending her off into uncharted territory. No elite skier had ever come back to the top of the profession after such a surgery, and at that age. She was, in a way, a medical experiment.
While Vonn entered the 2024–25 World Cup season with typical fearlessness, other skiers were alarmed.
Austrian men’s downhill icon Franz Klammer, whose daredevil gold medal run in 1976 is the stuff of legend, declared that Vonn had “gone completely mad.” Another legend of the sport, Pirmin Zurbriggen, told a Swiss media outlet that “there is a risk that Vonn will tear her artificial knee to pieces. And in such a way that she will never be able to do any sport properly for the rest of her life.” Michaela Dorfmeister, winner of two Olympic gold medals 20 years ago, said “Vonn should see a psychologist,” and wondered, “Does she want to kill herself?”
Vonn has rabbit ears for criticism, often using it for motivational fuel. When her first comeback season ended with runner-up in the Super-G at Sun Valley, Idaho, last March, seven years removed from her last podium finish, she felt vindication. The critics were silenced.
“Even though what people said about me and this comeback hurt,” she said, “it didn’t stop me from believing in my ability.”
With an improved diet and a ripped physique (“My body looks a lot different than it used to and I’m pretty excited about it.”), Vonn approached this second comeback season with complete confidence. She was pain-free and ready to smash the perceived age barriers that confront all older athletes.
“[Olympic gymnast] Aly Raisman texted me, ‘How does your body feel? Doesn’t it hurt?’ “ Vonn said. “No, it actually doesn’t, which is so amazing to be able to say. I used to say my body creaks every time I wake up in the morning, but I feel so good. I honestly feel the best I’ve felt since I was in my mid-20s.
“I don’t know that there’s very many skiers, if ever, that have been away for as many years and then come back, and you just definitely have a much different perspective. I’m at peace with where I am in my life. I don’t need to be ski racing, but I definitely love to ski race and I have nothing to prove. … I am happy. I’m free.”
SHE’S. BACK. 🔥
After EIGHT years…Lindsey Vonn is back to bring the FIRE. The #WinterOlympics begin Feb. 6 on NBC and Peacock! pic.twitter.com/ehSw1h7HdX
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) January 26, 2026
The World Cup results this season were a smashing success—Vonn was on the podium in seven out of eight downhills prior to the event in Crans-Montana last week, winning twice. She was a medical marvel, an inspiration to 40-somethings everywhere and a galvanizing presence on the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team. Alongside four-time Olympic skier Mikaela Shiffrin, Vonn was the top American draw in outdoor sports for these games.
She was on the cover of magazines, featured on all the major TV networks and an endorser’s dream. She had name recognition, telegenic looks and a well-honed ability to articulate to a mass audience.
“I’ve gotten so much support from so many people, so many young girls and women,” she said.”I think I’m proving to the world that a woman at 41 can do anything [they] set their mind to. I’m not looking to just participate in the Olympics. … I’m looking to what I can do in the Olympics. That’s my goal. I’m looking forward and I know what I’m capable of, so I have my own expectations. I’m sure the world has their own as well, but I don’t think yours will be higher than mine.”
Cortina was coming into clear focus, right on time. And then the picture blurred.
No Risk, No Reward in Downhill Skiing
It’s an admitted oversimplification, but there are two kinds of ski racers: the technicians who excel in the tighter turns of slalom events, like Shiffrin, and the bombers who just fly downhill at terrifying speeds. A willingness to push the envelope is necessary for slalom skiers, too, and technical skill is required of the downhillers, but the key ingredients are distinct.
Vonn is a bomber with little regard for her own safety. She has perhaps had more high-profile, high-speed crashes than anyone else in her sport, yet she keeps coming back for more, undeterred.
“That’s just the way I’m built,” she said. “I think being a downhiller, you have to have a certain mentality, and to be a really good downhiller takes something different. And maybe that’s why I’m a little bit crazy, but I’m accepting of that. I’m willing to risk everything. That’s why I’ve won as many times as I have in downhill. It takes a certain level of courage and a willingness to throw yourself down the mountain.
“And I think that’s the fun of ski racing. That’s one thing I enjoy. And I always say, if you’re not willing to risk everything and you’re afraid, then downhill’s not for you. And that’s totally fine, but that’s literally in my DNA, that’s what I was meant to do is go that fast and push myself as hard as I can.”
Vonn was airlifted to a hospital after crashing during a World Cup event one week before the 2026 Winter Olympics. | Denis Balibouse/Reuters via Imagn Images
It would be a cruel ending to a legendary comeback if Vonn’s push reached a breaking point last week, on the cusp of a final Olympics. But if she can enter the starting gate, she will.
Her childhood coach growing up in Minnesota, Erich Sailer, died last year at age 99. Vonn’s October recollection of one piece of advice he gave her could prove prescient in the days to come.
“He said, ‘What’s 60 seconds in a lifetime?’ “ Vonn recalled. “So it kind of puts things in perspective. Yes, my knee hurts a lot, but I have to give everything I have because life is short and 60 seconds in a lifetime is nothing.”
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