Lindsey Vonn Crashes Hard, Airlifted Off Olympic Downhill Course

Under the Italian sky, Lindsey Vonn pushed off down the Tofane downhill course in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Just before the Olympics, during a World Cup competition, she had ruptured her ACL in her left knee amidst her awe-inspiring comeback at age 41. She decided to race in the Olympics anyway. It had the makings of a storybook moment.

But Vonn’s dreams were cut short in Italy. Just seconds after beginning her gold medal bid, Vonn lost control, rotating through the air, landing sideways, and disappearing into a cloud of snow. 

A stunned silence settled over the course. Medics surrounded Vonn. Her screams could be heard on camera. Minutes later, she was airlifted away. 

It wasn’t the outcome her fans, family, or team had hoped for. 

"That's definitely the last thing we wanted to see," Vonn's sister Karin Kildow told NBC reporter Cara Banks on the broadcast. "When that happens, you're just immediately hoping she's okay, and it was scary. When you start to see the stretchers being put out, it's not a good sign."

Still, Kildow added what many onlookers were likely thinking, describing the tenacity of her sister.

"She dared greatly, and she put it all out there,” Kildow said. “I think she’s being evaluated right now is the only thing we’ve heard.”

In the fall of 2024, Vonn announced that she would exit retirement and return to ski racing.

Across the first leg of her career, she established herself as one of the best racers of all time, notching 84 World Cup race wins, just behind the record leaders Mikaela Shiffrin and Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark. Vonn’s an Olympic medalist, too, with one gold and two bronze to her name.

Her initial season back on snow was strong, ending with an impressive second-place finish at the super-G in Sun Valley, Idaho. It was this winter, though, that Vonn really hit her stride. In downhill, she was nearly unstoppable, finishing on the podium in all five of her World Cup races in that discipline, including two wins. She established herself as an Olympic medal favorite.

Then came the ruptured ACL at a race in Switzerland ahead of the Olympics. While it called her ambitions into question, Vonn, true to character, remained defiant. 

“I know what my chances in these Olympics were before this crash, and even though my chances aren’t the same now, there is still a chance,” she wrote in a social media post before the downhill race. “And as long as I have a chance, I will not lose hope. I will not give up! It’s not over yet!”

Because of her knee injury, it goes without saying that Vonn was going for broke.

Despite the crash, there was a moment of triumph for the Americans. Vonn's teammate, Breezy Johnson, secured an early lead and clung to it, winning gold. Germany’s Emma Aicher took second, and Italy’s Sofia Goggia claimed third.