Olympic legend Shaun White on Lindsey Vonn, Chloe Kim overcoming injuries
USA TODAY Sports caught up with olympic legend Shaun White to discuss the resiliency of Lindsay Vonn and Chloe Kim overcoming injuries ahead of winter games.
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Chloe Kim was hurt again, less than a month before the 2026 Winter Olympics were set to begin, so she called the most decorated Olympic snowboarder for advice.
Shaun White suffered a bruised lung and needed more than 60 stitches after a training run crash in New Zealand less than three months before qualifying for the 2018 PyeongChang Games. He nonetheless wound up making Team USA and won his third Olympic gold medal in the men’s halfpipe a few months later.
Kim, well aware of this history, had but one request over the phone: “I know you’ve been through this. Tell me what to do. Help me.”
White recalled his recent interaction with Kim during an interview with USA TODAY Sports on Thursday, Feb. 5, at a Ralph Lauren event held in conjunction with the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. But Kim’s attempt to return from injury in time for these Winter Games is occurring on a tighter timetable.
Kim announced on Thursday, Jan. 8 in an Instagram video she had reinjured her shoulder following the “silliest fall” during her second day of training before a pre-Olympic tune-up competition in Laax, Switzerland. An MRI revealed she had suffered a torn labrum.
White mentioned Kim emphasized to him in their conversation how the injury would impact her potential practice time in Italy ahead of the start to the snowboarding events at the Games. Kim previously stated she would not be able to snowboard until “right before the Olympics.”
“It’s one of those things where you’re thinking about your run, you’re thinking about the performance, your interview, this and that, and then all of a sudden, boom, this thing comes out of left field that’s just not part of the plan, and I think it shows a true athlete when they can pivot,” White said. “… I told (Kim), like, the road to the Olympics is never a straight one. There are twists and turns and things that happen along the way, but you know what you need to do and right now you need to get better and you need to recover, and you can come back and be strong and perform.”
“She was really banking on all this practice time that she’s not going to have anymore,” White added, “and I’m like, ‘OK, let’s pivot. Let’s push forward. What can we do today moving forward?’ So I’m thrilled to hear that she’s here, she’s healthy, she’s excited to compete, so I guess she knows her body and she knows what she needs to do.”
White, 39, also offered a hopeful message for American skiier Lindsey Vonn, who will try to compete despite suffering a ruptured ACL in a pre-Olympic event last month. The two were Olympic teammates with Team USA in 2006, 2010 and 2018.
White compared Vonn’s ongoing situation to when Kerri Strug competed through injury in the women’s gymnastics team event and landed a memorable vault to help the United States win the Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Summer Games. He found inspiration in Vonn’s Instagram post from a post-injury workout, commenting that “I can’t lift the weight she’s lifting with two good knees.”
“I was so heartbroken to hear the news about her crash and her injuries because her knees have been an issue for some time and she got a lot of corrective surgeries to remedy that,” White said, “and to hear that she hurt her knee again so close to the Olympics, with having won races leading up to it, I don’t know. I was feeling a lot of different ways. … If anyone is going to pull through and do well at these Olympics, it’s her. She’s shown us how tough she is, but we’re all rooting for her. It’s an amazing story.”
