Lindsey Vonn, on a torn ACL, completes training run ahead of Olympic downhill – The Athletic

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — A week after crashing and tearing the most important knee ligament, Alpine skiing’s biggest superstar made it down her first training run at the famed Olympia delle Tofane on Friday, with no apparent issues other than a few slips off the course.

After watching her cross the finish line, Vonn’s coach, Aksel Lund Svindal — like Vonn, an Olympic downhill gold medalist — said she can win.

“There was reserves today,” he said. “She looked symmetrical, and I mean, you’ve seen earlier this season when she skis well, she can win, and from what I saw today, I think she can. I mean, it’s going to be hard, but I think that she could possibly bring that on Sunday.”

A week ago, the injury left Svindal thinking the Olympic dream was unlikely. He had watched her free ski in recent days, and she looked solid, but it’s one thing to make a perfect-looking turn when you get to decide when to execute it, and quite another squeeze to turn into the contours of an Olympic downhill course.

Under a bright midday sun, Vonn cruised down the 1.6-mile track in 1 minute, 40.33 seconds.

Vonn skied aggressively and went off course in a couple of instances, nearly missing gates, but the time barely mattered. Crossing the finish line did.

She’s just a few days removed from announcing a torn ACL in her left knee after a crash last week in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. Despite an injury that has sidelined countless skiers for a year or more, Vonn has said she is determined to be one of the few who manage to ski through the injury that can sap the joint of its much-needed stability.

The irrepressible 41-year-old, who has come out of retirement to chase a second downhill gold medal, posted a video Thursday of her squatting a heavy barbell at a training gym. Her right knee was partially replaced in 2024, sparking the comeback.

The women’s downhill is scheduled for Sunday. Vonn has said she will be in the starting gate.

At the end of Friday’s training run, Vonn dapped up U.S. teammate Breezy Johnson, who had gone just before her and was waiting in the finish area. Another day at the office.

Vonn competes in Friday’s training session. Can she win the Olympic downhill, even with a torn ACL? “I think she can,” coach Aksel Lund Svindal says. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

She and Johnson shared their impressions of what is very familiar terrain for them, though organizers have made it more dramatic, accentuating the jumps and twists and dips, or at least that’s how it ended up after roughly a foot of snow fell Wednesday into Thursday.

“This stuff is, like, kicking you off of the snow,” Johnson said.

She didn’t ask Vonn how her knee felt.

“She’s down here in the finish, so that’s a start,” she said.

Vonn hung around the finish area the next 30 minutes, chatting with teammates and coaches and doing the bare minimum of media. She let out a holler when her friend and teammate Jacqueline Wiles crossed the finish line with the best time of the day. Then she barely broke stride without walking through the mixed zone with journalists.

An Associated Press reporter yelled, “Lindsey, all good?”

“Yup,” she said, like she’d done nothing out of the ordinary.

Then she was off.

Of course, the morning had been anything but routine. Vonn was set to ski 10th, which should have meant she’d be finished about 20 minutes after the 11:30 start, but fog delayed the session, then rolled in after four skiers, halting the training run for 45 minutes.

Vonn and her teammates tried to stay busy and keep warm at the top of the course. They spent about 15 minutes learning a country line dance from the team physiotherapist, who had them tapping their ski boot and rotating in the snow.

An hour before, Vonn had been going through her usual routine, visualizing the course, rotating her hips and shoulders as she mentally went through the twists and curves of the track where she’s won a dozen World Cup races. Now she was busting a different sort of moves in the snow.

“Everybody was pretty relaxed up there,” Johnson said. “It’s really humid, and it really kind of cools you down more than just even normal sitting inside would. So you really got to keep your joints moving.”

Svindal watched Vonn at the top with a bit of awe. She was chill. He was not.

“This felt like race day to me because it’s very important,” he said. “She was really calm. I think I maybe I was more nervous.”

He and everyone else on Vonn’s team, the other coaches, her doctors, her physiotherapist and fitness trainer, knew what was at stake.

“If this works, it’s awesome, but if something happened, it would be bad,” he said.

Seemingly, the only one not concerned has been Vonn.

“She’s been very committed since the first day, and she’s convinced this will work,” Svindal said.

Svindal said Vonn was the first person on her team to say, soon after the injury, that she could be fit to race, ruptured ACL and all. Everyone told her to take it one day at a time, especially her doctors. They were all encouraged by the fact that her knee was not swelling up.

By Friday, they were confident her knee wouldn’t suddenly blow out in the middle of the course. Svindal and everyone else were looking to see if she pulled up or made an unnatural movement. That would be the signal that something felt weird or bad.

Svindal didn’t see anything like that, just a couple of basic mistakes at the bottom that they both knew she made. It only reaffirmed what he thought earlier in the week when he saw how determined Vonn was to race.

“We have a chance,” he said. “Because when she’s that committed, and she knows her body really well for multiple injuries, there is a chance.”

That’s all Vonn has ever wanted from this comeback. Despite a calamitous, horrendously timed injury, she could be two days away from getting it.