Lindsey Vonn in stable condition after crashing, breaking left leg in Olympic final
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Dana O’Neil and Ben Church, CNN
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (CNN) — Lindsey Vonn is in “stable condition” after undergoing surgery to treat a fracture in her left leg following her crash in the downhill final on Sunday, which brought her Olympic dream to an end.
According to the Associated Press, the surgery was performed at the Ca’ Foncello hospital in Treviso on the same leg that Vonn “completely ruptured” her ACL in a Jan. 30 crash in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
The American burst out of the start in Sunday’s final but caught a gate with her right arm after just 13 seconds, sending her tumbling down the slope to a halt.
WATCH: Lindsey Vonn crashes in Olympic women’s downhill at Milan Cortina 2026 | NBC Sports
Total silence then fell across the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, as medics attended to the three-time Olympic medalist.
The 41-year-old was then airlifted off the Olimpia delle Tofane piste as the crowd stood to applaud her.
After a lengthy pause in the women’s downhill event, proceedings eventually got back underway where Vonn’s teammate, Breezy Johnson, won Team USA’s first gold of the Games.
Vonn is being “treated by a multidisciplinary team” and “underwent an orthopedic operation to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg,” the hospital in Treviso, roughly 80 miles away from the piste where she crashed, said in a statement to AP.
“Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians,” the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team said earlier in the day in a short statement on social media.
“She’ll be OK, but it’s going to be a bit of a process,” U.S. Ski and Snowboard chief of sport Anouk Patty told AP.
CNN has reached out to U.S. Ski and Snowboard for comment.
“This sport’s brutal and people need to remember when they’re watching (that) these athletes are throwing themselves down a mountain and going really, really fast.”
Always a risk
It was always going to be a risk for Vonn to compete at this year’s Games after she suffered such a serious injury in the Jan. 30 crash in Crans-Montana.
She had completed two training runs ahead of the final, though, and seemed to believe she could still compete at the highest level.
“I will race tomorrow in my final Olympic Downhill and while I can’t guarantee a good result, I can guarantee I will give it everything I have,” she wrote on Instagram on Saturday.
“But no matter what, I have already won.”
Some of her fellow athletes looked emotional after watching the crash on Sunday, worried about the damage Vonn might have sustained.
“We all know the difficulties that Lindsey was going through these last days and to come to the race, I think she just leveled up too much and risked too much, and that’s why this kind of crash can happen,” retired Slovenian skier and two-time Olympic gold medalist Tina Maze told Eurosport.
“It’s really tough for everyone here to see this, and especially for her family, her teammates and everyone working with her. It’s terrible for everyone.”
Vonn’s sister Karin Kildow told NBC that the crash was scary to see. She also said Vonn would have no regrets about her decision to compete.
“She always goes 110%, there’s never anything less, so I know she put her whole heart into it and sometimes, just like things happen,” Kildow said.
“It’s a very dangerous sport, and there’s a lot of variables at play, so I don’t really know exactly what happened, but it did look like a pretty rough fall, so we’re just hoping for the best.”
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