‘The ride was worth the fall’: Lindsey Vonn returning to US for further surgeries after downhill crash

American fractured tibia in downhill last week

Lindsey Vonn is preparing to fly back to America after she fractured her tibia in the Olympic downhill last week, according to the CEO of the US Ski and Snowboard Association.

Sophie Goldschmidt says her team’s medical staff has been coordinating Vonn’s recovery and hopes to accompany her back home to the United States. Vonn has had multiple surgeries in Italy to repair the complex tibia fracture in her left leg.

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“We’re working through all of that at the moment,” Goldschmidt said. “We’ve got a great team around helping her and she’ll go back to the US for further surgeries.”

Spectators hoping to see Vonn win a medal at the age of 41 with a torn ACL in her left knee and a partial titanium replacement in her right knee were shocked when she hooked a gate just 13 seconds into her run – resulting in a spinning crash.

“The impact, the silence, everyone was just in shock. And you could tell it was a really nasty injury,” said Goldschmidt, who was at the course when Vonn crashed. “There’s a lot of danger in doing all sorts of Alpine sports but it gives more of an appreciation for how superhuman these athletes are.

“I mean putting your body on the line, going at those speeds, the physicality. Sometimes actually on the broadcast it’s really hard to get that across. Danger sometimes brings fans in and is pretty captivating. We obviously hope we won’t have injuries like that but it is unfortunately part and parcel of our sports.”

Vonn says she has no regrets. “When I think back on my crash, I didn’t stand in the starting gate unaware of the potential consequences,” Vonn said in an Instagram post late Saturday. “I knew what I was doing. I chose to take a risk. Every skier in that starting gate took the same risk. Because even if you are the strongest person in the world, the mountain always holds the cards.

“But just because I was ready, that didn’t guarantee me anything. Nothing in life is guaranteed. That’s the gamble of chasing your dreams, you might fall but if you don’t try you’ll never know.

Vonn added that people should not feel sorry for her. “Don’t feel sad,” she wrote. “The ride was worth the fall. When I close my eyes at night I don’t have regrets and the love I have for skiing remains. I am still looking forward to the moment when I can stand on the top of the mountain once more. And I will.”

Goldschmidt visited Vonn at the hospital twice and said, “She’s not in pain. She’s in a stable condition.

“She took an aggressive line and was all in and it was inches off what could have ended up a very different way,” Goldschmidt said. “But what she’s done for our sports and the sport in general, her being a role model, has gone to a whole new level. You learn often more about people during these tough moments than when they’re winning.”

Some users on social media said Vonn should not have been racing only a week after tearing her ACL. However, those who know the risks of skiing best supported Vonn’s decision.

“People that don’t know ski racing don’t really understand what happened yesterday,” Vonn’s US teammate Keely Cashman said on Monday. “She hooked her arm on the gate, which twisted her around. She was going probably 70mph, and so that twists your body around.”

Cashman, who suffered a heavy crash of her own five years ago, said Vonn’s crash had “nothing to do with her ACL, nothing to do with her knee”, and people who think otherwise are “totally incorrect”.