Against All Odds: Lindsey Vonn’s Last Stand

At 41, with a completely torn ACL and titanium in her knee, Lindsey Vonn refuses to let her Olympic dream slip away. Sometimes the greatest victories come from the most impossible circumstances.

The Crash That Changed Everything

Vonn lost control while landing a jump at the top of the course and became tangled in the safety nets. She received medical attention for nearly five minutes before she was able to slowly ski to the finish line, then was airlifted to the hospital. The diagnosis was devastating: “My ACL is 100% ruptured. Not 80% or 50%. It’s 100% gone.” For most athletes, this would be the end. For Vonn, it was just another obstacle.

The Impossible Comeback Within a Comeback

The four-time overall World Cup champion and 2010 Olympic gold medalist unretired after almost six years away from the sport and dominated the downhill once more on a partially replaced right knee. Before the crash, Vonn was ranked first in the women’s downhill, leading second-place Emma Aicher by 144 points. Now she faces the ultimate test: competing for a medal on one surgically repaired knee and one without the main stabilizing ligament.

Defying Medical Logic

Experts are divided on whether this is possible. During that 1.5 to 2 minutes, Vonn will be traveling at an average of 80 miles per hour. “If that knee buckles on her and she falls again, she could get hurt again and it could be a lot worse,” warns one specialist. But Vonn planned to wear a knee brace and cited the strength of her quadriceps muscle – both of which will provide some external stability to the knee that the ACL can’t provide anymore. Despite her injuries, Vonn said her knee is stable, there is no swelling and her muscles are “firing and reacting as they should.”

The Mental Game

“We all know how strong of a skier she is. But I think that her mental game is what makes Lindsey Lindsey,” said Wright, who tore her ACL in 2016. “That is what it takes to get through injuries, to get through the trauma, to get through the crashes.” Vonn’s determination is unwavering: “I’m not letting this slip through my fingers. I’m gonna do it. End of story.”

History in the Making

Vonn went through her first training run Friday since rupturing the ACL in her left knee, flashing a smile at the finish line after making it through her 100-second run without issue. “I think she can because there was reserves today,” Svindal said. “You’ve seen earlier this season when she skis well she can win, and from what I saw today, I think she can. It’s going to be hard, but I think she could possibly bring that on Sunday.” If she medals, she’ll become the oldest Olympic alpine skiing medalist in history. Sometimes the greatest stories are written when everything seems lost.