Lindsey Vonn arrived on the slopes of Cortina with one good leg and departed in tears on a stretcher, suspended high above the Dolomites by a rescue helicopter. Ultimately, her Olympic dream and knee were left in identical states of disrepair by an astonishing gamble that veered far too close to the edge of reason on Sunday.
And so she wept in the snow and screamed in agony after her improbable challenge for an Olympic downhill medal ended in a devastating and distressing manner just seconds into her run.
The mechanics of her second huge crash in the space of nine days went as follows: 13 seconds into her descent, Vonn’s right shoulder clipped the third gate, spinning her 41-year-old body 180 degrees into an irretrievable, dire situation.
Landing backwards, she smashed hard into the dense snow, before flipping over again, and her mangled left knee, the one obliterated in the first crash on January 30, took almost the full force of the impact.
Across the next 10 minutes, as medics tended to the American, prior to the arrival of help from the skies, her screams of ‘oh my god’ were heard on the mountain and in living rooms worldwide. A sadder sight or sound at these Games would be hard to imagine.
Lindsey Vonn suffered a horror crash during the women’s downhill final in Cortina
The American star was clearly in agony as she laid on the snow awaiting medical attention
Vonn was eventually airlifted off of the mountain and has reportedly been taken to a hospital in Innsbruck
In time, Vonn might reflect that it was better to try and fall, but for now, in addition to feeling immense sympathy, it is easier to side with those who always felt this campaign was ill-advised from the off. Was it misfortune for the woman wearing bib No 13, undertaking the 13th run, to crash after 13 seconds? Or was it misadventure?
There will always be an allure around those attempting the impossible, especially in the form of an athlete chasing a second Olympic gold, 16 years after the first, and having made such a strong return from retirement. But climbing an Olympic podium on one leg? Via a 2,572metres descent on a fiendish course with 760m drop in altitude?
That Vonn was third quickest in the final practise run on Saturday allowed many to get carried away by the possibilities, her coaching team included, but this worst-case scenario was also forewarned by many in the sport.
The two-time Olympic skiing champion Tina Maze spoke for a good few in the aftermath by saying on TNT: ‘We all know the difficulties Lindsey was going through in the last days, and I think in the end she risked too much and that’s this kind of crash can happen.
‘Of course if you are not healthy the consequences are even worse, but Lindsey wanted to do this no matter what. It’s really tough for everyone here to see this, especially for her family and team-mates and everyone working with her. It’s just terrible. A tough day.’
While Maze was speaking, Vonn was in the process of being strapped to a stretcher and, as with the first crash in which she ruptured her cruciate ligaments, she was then hoisted skywards by cable beneath a helicopter. It is understood they were heading for a hospital in Innsbruck, across the border in Austria.
BBC pundit and former alpine skier Chemmy Alcott said in her broadcast: ‘I feel guilty that I am this emotional. I just never believed it would end in a clump at the side of the piste, not moving. What we saw that the top of the piste is really hard for a fit athlete – she just had her right knee. It is brutal, think about her family, her team and herself.’
Vonn ruptured her ACL only nine days before the start of the Olympics, but maintained she was ready to compete
The 41-year-old had posted the third-quickest time in final practice, raising the remarkable possibility that she could compete for a spot on the podium
BBC pundit Chemmy Alcott was clearly distressed following the crash
It is understood Vonn was accompanied here by Dr Martin Roche, the orthopaedic surgeon who once replaced her right knee with titanium. The question of whether her wider entourage ought to have counselled against participating in Italy after the crash in January will be inevitable.
What is undeniable is that Vonn had already astonished her sceptics with her performances in the past week. She was 11th quickest on Friday, third on Saturday, and stepped into the gate on Sunday with so much hype that even Snoop Dogg had joined the ranks of the locally curious.
Vonn, watching on as her US team-mate Breezy Johnson set the leading time in 1:36.10, readied herself by massaging snow into the back of her neck. When it was her turn, she stomped her skis into the snow and set off down the slope. Always an aggressive skier, she was tight to the lines and too tight to that third gate.
The crash threw out of a cloud of snow powder and, for Vonn, it will take an awful long time to settle.
When she hit the snow, Johnson covered her face, but before long she was celebrating gold ahead of Emma Aicher of Germany and Italy’s Sofia Goggia.
A word on Johnson. She has suffered serious knee injuries of her own, which is a cost of doing business in this sport, but she also served a 14-month doping ban that elapsed in 2024 after three whereabouts violations. As queasy as folk felt about Vonn’s nightmarish day, they might have some reservations the destination of the medal she was chasing.
