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Lindsey Vonn underwent surgery “to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg,” officials at an Italian hospital said Sunday hours after the Olympian crashed hard during her run.
Vonn powered through a ruptured ACL to have an attempt to medal at the alpine skiing women’s downhill event. She lost control a few seconds into her run and crashed in the first sector. She writhed in pain as medical professionals tended to her.
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In this image taken from video provided by Olympic Broadcasting Services, OBS, United States’ Lindsey Vonn lays on the course after crashing during an alpine ski women’s downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (Olympic Broadcasting Services via AP)
A helicopter was dispatched to whisk Vonn off the mountain. She was taken to a clinic in Cortina, then transferred to a hospital in Treviso.
The Ca’Foncello hospital released a statement on Vonn, saying she was being “treated by a multidisciplinary team. The U.S. Ski Team said Vonn was “in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.”
“She’ll be OK, but it’s going to be a bit of a process,” U.S. Ski and Snowboard’s chief of sport Anouk Patty said. “This sport’s brutal and people need to remember when they’re watching (that) these athletes are throwing themselves down a mountain and going really, really fast.”
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United States’ Lindsey Vonn is airlifted away after a crash during an alpine ski women’s downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Breezy Johnson picked up the gold medal in the event, notching Team USA’s first in the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.
“I don’t claim to know what she’s going through, but I do know what it is to be here, to be fighting for the Olympics, and to have this course burn you and to watch those dreams die,” said Johnson, who missed out on the 2022 Games due to a knee injury. “I can’t imagine the pain that she’s going through and it’s not the physical pain — we can deal with physical pain — but the emotional pain is something else.”
International Ski and Snowboard Federation president Johan Eliasch called Vonn’s crash “tragic, but it’s ski racing.”
In this image taken from video provided by Olympic Broadcasting Services, OBS, United States’ Lindsey Vonn is prepared for evacuation after crashing during an alpine ski women’s downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (Olympic Broadcasting Services via AP)
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“I can only say thank you for what she has done for our sport,” he said, “because this race has been the talk of the games and it’s put our sport in the best possible light.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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