As Lindsey Vonn was airlifted off the slope at Crans-Montana nine days ago it looked like her hopes of a fourth Olympic medal were over. Those hopes had already looked unlikely a season and a half ago when she made her comeback after six years’ retirement. But she had proved everyone wrong multiple times already; it would be foolish to expect her not to do so again.
The Crans-Montana crash left her with a completely ruptured ACL in her left knee, a bone bruise and meniscus damage. It is only the latest in a litany of broken bones, concussions, and other serious injuries which have punctuated her career.
In her final race before retirement, the world championships downhill in 2019, she wore two knee braces to stabilise a torn lateral collateral ligament, three tibia fractures and a bone bruise. All of that couldn’t prevent her from winning bronze. In the 2013 world championships she tore her ACL and MCL in her right knee and fractured her tibia; later in 2013 she partially tore her right ACL again.
That only skims the surface; the thought of what else she could have achieved without those misfortunes probably keeps her rivals up at night.
And now, with one titanium knee – a knee replacement having fixed the pain that drove her to retire – and one completely destabilised one, she is still going.
Exactly a week after tearing the ACL she was on the start line for training at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo. She flew down the slope in one minute 40.33 seconds, 11th of 43 finishers, and visibly had more to give.
It was a restrained performance, assessing how the injury felt. “Let’s put it this way, she’s tough,” her coach, Aksel Lund Svindal, said.
And toughness might be Vonn’s single defining trait. More so than her superb athleticism, or her obvious innate talent, it is sheer grit which has carried her through a career dogged at every turn by injury and misfortune.
Toughness was what brought her back to competitive skiing after a six-year retirement. That, and the desire to see just how far she could still go, to push her body and her mind to the absolute limit. This week, that tired sporting cliche is, for once, literal.
She trained again on Saturday, appearing relaxed as she chatted to teammates beforehand. This time she crossed the line third, 0.37 between teammate and former world champion Breezy Johnson, who set the time to beat.
Lund Svindal said afterwards: “She was very calm when she came down. She didn’t talk about the knee at all. I figured that’s a good sign.”
Asked whether the 41-year-old is in a state to win, he said: “Good enough to win this race, hopefully. But her mental strength, I think that’s why she has won as much as she has.”
Teammate Mikaela Shiffrin, one of only two women more successful at World Cup level than Vonn, concurred: “If anyone can do it, she can do it,” she told the Washington Post this week.
There has been plenty of armchair diagnosis and dissection of Vonn’s injury this week, but it seems fair to give a woman whose body has repeatedly gone through the wars and still come out the other side, the final say.
Even making it to the start line is a huge physical and mental achievement. Of course Vonn won’t see it like that; she said this week that she is simply “a woman who loves to ski”.
She is here to get a medal, to win, to enjoy one more Olympic Games, on a slope where she has won a record 12 World Cups.
That athlete’s mentality won’t have shifted despite having a knee that is essentially held together by sheer willpower. Competing is impressive; a medal would be astounding.
Whatever happens on Sunday, Vonn has simply underlined the strength of character which has got her to the top of the sport, and proven once again how far true grit can get you.
