Featured Image Credit: Screengrab by IOC via Getty Images
Topics: Sport, News, Olympics, World News, Instagram, Social Media, Health
Madison Burgess
Topics: Sport, News, Olympics, World News, Instagram, Social Media, Health
Lindsey Vonn has issued an emotional update following her Winter Olympics crash on Sunday (8 February) which left her with a broken leg.
The 41-year-old American sports star was competing in the women's downhill competition in Cortina when she crashed out of the race, and is now facing 'multiple surgeries'.
Vonn clipped a gate and crashed just seconds into her run, with a helicopter airlifting her off the mountain before she later underwent surgery on a broken leg in a hospital in Treviso.
She had damaged her ACL just over a week before the event, however, had successfully finished two practice runs of the Cortina course and so felt confident to go ahead.
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In an initial update on X following the crash, the US Ski and Snowboard Team shared the news that Vonn 'sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians'.
And in an additional statement, quoted on olympics.com on Sunday evening, Ca’ Foncello Hospital confirmed the 41-year-old 'underwent orthopaedic surgery to stabilise a fracture in her left leg'.
Now, Vonn herself has spoken in a lengthy social media statement posted to Instagram on Monday (9 February).
Vonn had been chasing a dream 16 years on from her downhill win in Vancouver, after returning from retirement, and following a partial knee replacement to target an Olympic medal.
She emotionally talked about how she has 'no regrets' about trying to achieve her dream, while clarifying that her ACL injury had 'nothing to do with the crash whatsoever'.
The athlete wrote: "Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a story book ending or a fairy tail, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it.
"Because in Downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as five inches."
She revealed: "I was simply five inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash. My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever."
Vonn outlined that she sustained a complex tibia fracture that is 'currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly'.
"While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets," she wrote. "Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget."
The Olympian continued: "Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. I also knew that racing was a risk. It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport.
"And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken.
"Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is the also the beauty of life; we can try. I tried. I dreamt. I jumped."
Vonn passionately signed off with: "I hope if you take away anything from my journey it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying.
"I believe in you, just as you believed in me."