Lindsey Vonn refuses to rule out return to skiing after horror crash at Winter Olympics

Lindsey Vonn has kept the door open to a possible return to competitive skiing in the future as she begins a long recovery from her horror crash at the Winter Olympics . Vonn underwent emergency surgery on complex leg injuries after crashing out of the downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo having attempted to race with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). The American had come out of retirement to target a tilt at a second Olympic gold medal and looked well placed to contend having led the World Cup downhill standings in the weeks before the Games.

A major crash at the final race before the event at Crans-Montana saw Vonn suffer the ACL injury, the first of two significant set-backs for the 41-year-old. While she had already retired once in 2019 and had a knee replacement, Vonn has insisted that she has not yet made up her mind over whether she has reached the end of her career – and hopes not to be remembered for the crash at the Milan-Cortina Games. “I don’t want people to hang on this crash and be remembered for that,” the skier told Vanity Fair .

“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.

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of the Olympic downhill (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) “I don’t like to close the door on anything, because you just never know what’s going to happen. I have no idea what my life will be like in two years or three years or four years.