‘I’m in survival mode’: US skier Lindsey Vonn on fallout from Olympic crash

Lindsey Vonn has said she is unsure whether her skiing career is over after admitting to being in “survival mode” following her crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

The American, who is regarded as one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time, has had eight operations since breaking her leg and ankle in the women’s downhill event in Italy on 8 February.

The 41-year-old has previously said that surgery had prevented her from having her leg amputated following the incident.

“I just don’t want to jump to any conclusions or even speculate on what I might do,” Vonn told the Associated Press.

“I may retire. I may never race again and that would be completely fine, but I’m not in a position emotionally to make that decision at this point.”

The 2010 Olympic downhill champion said she has “one more surgery left to take out the metal and to replace my [anterior cruciate ligament] ACL” and then a lengthy period of recuperation.

“Once I get my ACL fixed, then that’s another six months, so I have at least a year and a half ahead of me before I could really be back to 100%, even just training in the gym,” she added.

Vonn was racing at the Olympics in Cortina nine days after rupturing ligaments in her left knee when she struck a gate and crashed 13 seconds into her downhill run.

She was airlifted off the piste and diagnosed with a complex tibia fracture in her left leg.

“I’m still in survival mode. I just want to get through this phase and be able to assess where I am in my life,” said Vonn, who won her two world titles in 2009.

“I don’t want to make a decision now because I think that would be rash and probably too emotional and I don’t want to make a mistake.”

Vonn, who has won 84 World Cup races and is second in the all-time women’s list behind fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin, suffered a number of serious leg injuries before initially retiring from the sport in 2019.

After having a partial right knee replacement, she announced her shock return in 2024.

Vonn had been tipped to win a medal at her fifth and final Olympics, and competed despite suffering the ACL injury in Switzerland in the last World Cup race before the Games.

She described the injury at the Games as “much different” to any of her previous ones in terms of “the severity of the injury and understanding that I could have lost my leg and how bad things were”.

She added: “I can deal with a lot of pain, but this was so extreme. It’s not even been in the universe of pain as what I’ve had before.”