Skier breaks leg, will get airlifted away – NBC New York
Lindsey Vonn’s defiant bid to win the Winter Olympic downhill on the age of 41, on a rebuilt proper knee and a badly injured left knee, ended Sunday in a daunting crash that left her with a damaged leg and noticed her taken to security by a rescue helicopter for the second time in 9 days.
Vonn misplaced management inside moments of leaving the beginning home, clipping a gate together with her proper shoulder and pinwheeling down the slope earlier than ending up awkwardly on her again, her skis crisscrossed beneath her and her screams ringing out quickly after medical personnel arrived. She was handled for lengthy, anguished minutes as a hush fell over the gang ready far beneath on the end line.
She was strapped to a gurney and flown away, probably ending the skier’s storied profession. She was taken to a clinic in Cortina, then transferred to a bigger hospital in Treviso, a two-hour drive to the south.
She was being “handled by a multidisciplinary crew” and “underwent an orthopedic operation to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg,” the Ca’ Foncello hospital mentioned in an announcement. The U.S. Ski Group mentioned Vonn was “in steady situation and in good fingers with a crew of American and Italian physicians.”
Breezy Johnson, Vonn’s teammate, turned solely the second American girl to win the Olympic downhill after Vonn did it 16 years in the past. The 30-year-old Johnson held off Emma Aicher of Germany and Italy’s Sofia Goggia on a bittersweet day for the crew.
Vonn had household within the stands, together with her father, Alan Kildow, who stared down on the floor whereas his daughter was being handled after simply 13 seconds on the course the place she holds a report 12 World Cup titles. Others within the crowd, together with rapper Snoop Dogg, watched quietly because the star skier was lastly taken off the course. Fellow American star Mikaela Shiffrin posted a damaged coronary heart emoji on social media.
Vonn’s crash was “tragic, nevertheless it’s ski racing,” mentioned Johan Eliasch, president of the Worldwide Ski and Snowboard Federation.
“I can solely say thanks for what she has performed for our sport,” he mentioned, “as a result of this race has been the speak of the Video games and it’s put our sport in the absolute best gentle.”
The crash crumbled the 41-year-old’s Olympic comeback dream, which she pushed forward in pursuing simply over every week after she tore her ACL.
Vonn initially retired from snowboarding in 2019, however she introduced her comeback to the game in later 2024. Her look on the Milan Cortina Video games comes 24 years after she made her Olympic debut on the 2002 Salt Lake Metropolis Video games and 16 years after successful her final gold medal in Vancouver.
