Lindsey Vonn Olympic downhill ACL : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3268x2178+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffa%2F50%2F6a11451a483b8efb3ac2c5ef6c06%2Fap26037444285176.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3268x2178+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffa%2F50%2F6a11451a483b8efb3ac2c5ef6c06%2Fap26037444285176.jpg" class="img" alt="United States' Lindsey Vonn speeds down the course during an alpine ski, women's downhill official training, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)" fetchpriority="high"/> United States' Lindsey Vonn speeds down the course throughout an alpine ski, ladies's downhill official coaching, on the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. Marco Trovati/AP conceal caption

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Marco Trovati/AP CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy — Right here within the Dolomites, with the 2026 Winter Olympics lastly underway, there may be one sentence heard in current days greater than every other: "If anybody can do it, Lindsey can."

That Lindsey is, in fact, Lindsey Vonn, the 41-year-old snowboarding celebrity whose genuinely epic comeback from retirement to compete at these Olympic Video games was immediately thrown into jeopardy simply over every week in the past when she crashed throughout a race and tore her left anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL.

Most athletes would bow out after such a severe harm. As a substitute, Vonn surprised the snowboarding world by asserting this week that she would compete anyway.

By Saturday, Vonn had efficiently accomplished two official coaching runs on the course on the Tofane Ski Middle, the place the ladies's alpine occasions are being held, setting the stage for Sunday's race.

"She is aware of she'll should push more durable tomorrow," stated her coach Aksel Lund Svindal after Saturday's coaching run. "You are not going to get away with a medal until you push arduous, and I believe she's prepared for that."

How can a skier ski on a torn ACL?

The ACL, or the anterior cruciate ligament, connects the femur to the tibia and helps to stabilize the knee because it pivots — that means it's key to athletes in sports activities like soccer, hockey and soccer, stated Dr. Timothy Lin, an orthopedic surgeon and sports activities drugs physician at Dartmouth Well being who has labored with the U.S. ski crew.

In different sports activities, like soccer, an ACL tear can finish an athlete's season. "Within the NFL, you might be always chopping and pivoting," Lin stated. "Though you possibly can tear your ACL snowboarding fairly simply, snowboarding just isn't essentially a chopping and pivoting exercise in and of itself."

That is very true of downhill, the straightest and quickest of the alpine disciplines. Skiers should flip and bounce however spend a lot of the race snowboarding in line in a tucked place. Due to that, snowboarding within the downhill race, as Vonn plans to do Sunday, might be much less dangerous than if she was competing in moguls or slopestyle.

In snowboarding, it is the sudden crash, he says, that may twist the knee and trigger the ACL tear.

However for Vonn, whose specialty is downhill racing — the quickest, straightest type of ski racing — he says, it is much less dangerous than in different disciplines.

"She's going to go facet to facet, however she's not planting her foot and pivoting on it, hopefully," he stated. "You may have interaction your quads and hamstrings to stabilize the knee in a predictable approach."

"It feels steady. I really feel sturdy. My knee just isn't swollen. And with the assistance of a knee brace, I'm assured that I can compete on Sunday [in the downhill race]," Vonn informed reporters earlier this week.

An harm with precedent in snowboarding

Because of this, it isn't exceptional for a skier to race after tearing their ACL. In 2022, Group USA skier Breezy Johnson tore hers in January earlier than the Winter Olympics in Beijing, however determined to maintain competing.

"I felt prefer it was completely attainable. I knew that it was dangerous," she informed reporters in October. The danger is that the following crash may trigger much more extreme injury to the knee — which occurred to Johnson a couple of weeks later, forcing her to tug out of the Video games.

"There are, I believe, extra athletes that ski with out ACLs and with knee injury than speak about it," Johnson stated this week. "Persons are typically unwilling to speak about it due to judgment from the media and the surface."

Key to persevering, stated fellow Group USA skier Bella Wright, is Vonn's psychological power.

"Everyone knows how sturdy of a skier she is. However I believe that her psychological sport is what makes Lindsey Lindsey," stated Wright, who tore her ACL in 2016. "That's what it takes to get via accidents, to get via the trauma, to get via the crashes."

Vonn's profitable coaching runs on Friday and Saturday

Earlier than the ACL tear, Vonn was the season chief within the FIS downhill standings and had a real likelihood at an Olympic gold medal, which might be the second gold and fourth total Olympic medal of her storied profession.

She acknowledges the probabilities are not nearly as good. However she is set to compete within the Olympics, and in doing so, full a comeback story that will be monumental for any athlete in any sport.

"I am gonna do it. Finish of story," she stated earlier this week. "I am not crying. My head is excessive. I am standing tall. I'll do my greatest, and regardless of the result's, that is what it's. However I can by no means say I did not attempt."

On Friday, Vonn efficiently accomplished her first official coaching run with a time of 1:40.33. It wasn't good — she favored her proper ski at instances, and he or she took one flip too broad and needed to course-correct to tug herself again between the blue traces. Nonetheless, out of greater than 40 skiers, she completed with the eleventh quickest time of the day. Then, Saturday, she skied it even sooner, crossing the end line in 1:38.28.

Svindal felt she confirmed clear enchancment from Friday to Saturday, he stated afterward, vital as a result of Saturday's situations had been extra race-like. The course at Tofane contains a handful of jumps that require a tough, flat touchdown, he stated, and a symmetrical touchdown, with equal weight on each toes, is vital to ski the course safely and shortly.

He was nervous then and will likely be nervous once more tomorrow, he stated, however differently: "Yesterday was about, 'Let's please let this be okay,'" he stated. "Tomorrow is like, 'Let's go and be quick.'"