Lindsey Vonn is less than two months removed from a skiing accident at the Milan-Cortina Olympics that almost resulted in the amputation of her left leg.
She has stopped taking painkillers but is still exhausted.
She is back home in Park City, Utah, but spends nearly all of her time in rehab.
She is 41 and has won four overall World Cup championships, with 84 World Cup wins and three Olympic medals, including gold in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
Yet, Vonn would not definitively say that her competitive skiing career is over, during a recent interview with Vanity Fair’s Elise Taylor.
“I don’t like to close the door on anything, because you just never know what’s going to happen,” said Vonn, who appears on the magazine’s cover in a long, black dress with a split that shows her left leg — bandages and all.
“I have no idea what my life will be like in two years or three years or four years. I could have two kids by then. I could have no kids and want to race again. I could live in Europe. I could be doing anything.”
She added: “It’s hard to tell with this injury. It’s so f— up.”
Vonn, who returned to racing in late 2024 after nearly six years away from the sport, had two victories and three other podium finishes in her five World Cup races during the most recent season. In December, Vonn announced she would be competing in her “5th and final Olympics!”
“I wanted to win the Olympics, and I wanted to win the downhill title, and I was on track to do both of those things,” Vonn told Vanity Fair.
On Jan. 30, Vonn suffered a complete rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, with meniscus and bone damage, when she crashed during a downhill race in Crans Montana, Switzerland.
She decided to compete at the Olympics anyway and had a couple of successful training runs leading up to the Feb. 8 downhill competition.
“I was in the exact mental state that I wanted to be in,” Vonn said. “I was ready to go.”
Unfortunately, her race didn’t last long. Vonn lost control on the first jump, spun sideways in the air, slammed to the ground and needed to be airlifted from the course. Vonn and other skiing experts have said that the ruptured ACL likely had nothing to do with her crash at the Olympics.
Vonn suffered a complex tibia fracture and other major damage. It contributed to a condition called compartment syndrome, which involves excessive pressure building up inside a muscle and possibly can lead to permanent injury or amputation.
Five surgeries later, Vonn is on the road to recovery. She has posted several photos and videos on Instagram as she amps up her fitness routine again. In a March 15 post on X, Vonn wrote that she’s not ready to discuss her skiing future.
“My focus has been on recovering from my injury and getting back to normal life,” she wrote, adding, “I’ll let you know when I decide.”
Vonn did tell Vanity Fair that she’s not crazy about the idea of the catastrophe at the Winter Games being the public’s last impression of her as a skier.
“I don’t want people to hang on this crash and be remembered for that. What I did before the Olympics has never been done before. I was number one in the standings. No one remembers that I was winning.”
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