Various broadcasts captured audio of Vonn crying, “Oh my God!” as a buoyant crowd grew essentially silent.
February 8, 2026 at 6:54 a.m. ESTToday at 6:54 a.m. EST
Lindsey Vonn was helicoptered away after crashing during the Alpine ski women's downhill race. (Marco Trovati/AP)
By Barry Svrluga
CORTINA d’AMPEZZO, Italy — Lindsey Vonn’s pursuit of a downhill medal in her fifth Olympic Games ended violently Sunday morning here with a gruesome crash that left her screaming in pain and being airlifted from the mountain.
Vonn was the 13th of a scheduled 36 athletes to take to the course under baby blue skies at this stunning resort town in the Dolomites. She was just 10 days removed from a crash that tore the ACL in her left knee, and her comeback for these Olympics had already been made possible by a replacement of her right knee.
But with teammate Breezy Johnson, who won gold in the event, waiting at the bottom, Vonn — who was third fastest in Saturday’s final training run — barely got to evaluate herself against the competition before disaster struck. Thirteen seconds into a run that would have taken more than a minute and a half, she clipped the fourth gate with her right arm.
The contact sent Vonn spinning, with snow flying around her. Her head and shoulder violently drove into the surface of the course before she flipped again, her legs splayed.
Various broadcasts captured audio of Vonn crying, “Oh my God!” The crash occurred at noon local time, and it took just nine minutes for a helicopter to arrive to begin the process of flying her from the mountain.
“Certainly hoping she is okay after that terrible crash,” the public address announcer belted to a once buoyant crowd that had grown essentially silent.
In a World Cup career that extends back more than two decades — and includes 84 victories and three Olympic medals, including gold in the downhill in 2010 — Vonn has been injured countless times. Never, though, in this kind of spotlight.
Her comeback bid that began last season — after the knee replacement allowed her to ski without pain for the first time she could remember — had been enormously successful. She won two World Cup downhill races this season, was the leader in the standings and had not finished out of the top three in five downhill starts. This comeback wasn’t a lark. This comeback was legit.
She had history on her side, too. Vonn first contested a World Cup race at this gorgeous spot in the Dolomites in 2004. She was 19. Mary Bocock, a teammate here, was born the previous October. Vonn finished third in that debut — the first of her 145 podiums on the elite global ski circuit.
The injury on Jan. 31 in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, cast her Olympic return in doubt. Yet her coach, the Norwegian Olympic champion Aksel Lund Svindal, said over the past two days that Vonn was the first person on her team to suggest she would be able to compete.
“She was very calm when she came down,” Svindal said after Saturday’s training run, in which Johnson was fastest. “She talked about skiing and was calm and didn’t talk about the knee at all. And I didn’t want to ask, either, because I figured that’s a good sign.”
Vonn had been scheduled to compete in Tuesday’s team combined competition — which features one downhill racer paired with a slalom athlete — as well as Thursday’s super-G. Her downhill ended in a helicopter, with the public address announcer saying, “Goodbye, Lindsey. We love you!”
Not by her; she’s a dedicated competitor with great courage who wouldn’t stay away.
But by the U.S. skiiing people and the Olympic skiing people, who should be investigated. People should lose their jobs for this. In NO WAY should she have been allowed to compete.
That can stuff the rest of the Olympics at this point. I won’t contribute to their ratings. RESIST!
I’m pretty sure there were doctors telling her not to go on…
Maybe she just did not believe, or want to believe, that the injury was that serious. I don’t know who makes those decisions other than the athletes themselves?
It’s probably not like a football team or franchise where someone else makes those decisions in the best interest of their team and future profit-making prospects.
I was worried about her. I didn't think she should be competing in that type of event with that type of injury and at her age.
Agreed. I haven't been watching Olympics but have seen a lot of press
Posted by Sia on February 8, 2026, 12:05 pm, in reply to "That's awful." ADMIN
on her and her recent injury in January that she was largely ignoring as a good reason not to compete. It seems that she wanted one more shot at a medal. From the sound of her fall, I figured she's done
Agreed.
Posted by greenman on February 8, 2026, 11:27 am, in reply to "That's awful." Valued Poster
on February 8, 2026, 8:30 am
