American alpine skier Lindsey Vonn's controversial Olympic comeback ended Sunday on a mountain in Italy. The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games marked Vonn's fifth time on Team USA.
At the end of January just before the games began, Vonn suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her left knee and a bruised bone. Critics online said she should drop out of the games to give event alternate Keely Cashman a chance to compete.
But Vonn's teammates had her back, pointing out she was hardly the first skier to compete in the World Cup or the Olympics with an ACL injury. Vonn was able to lift weights, do squats, and do practice runs without issues—the measure of whether she was fit to continue.
When her games came to an end after her right pole and arm clipped a gate on a downhill run on Sunday, those critics were quick to say, "I told you so." But her teammates once again defended her decision to compete, pointing out her crash wasn't related to her injury.
Addressing the armchair experts online, USA skier Keely Cashman said:
"People that don't know ski racing don't really understand what happened yesterday. She hooked her arm on the gate, which twisted her around."
"She was going probably 70 mph, and so that twists your body around. That has nothing to do with her ACL, nothing to do with her knee."
"A lot of people are ridiculing that, and a lot of people don't know what's going on."
"I'm not sure why people have so many opinions about it."
Cashman explained:
"Stick your hand out the car window when you're driving down the freeway and then pretend you're not connected to the car. It's going to twist you around."
Women's elite downhill skiers in World Cup and Olympic competitions reach top speeds of 75 to 95 mph (120–150 km/h) and Vonn was among the best.
Cashman added:
"People just don't understand really what goes on."
Cashman concluded:
"A lot of people have a lot of opinions about what happened yesterday and most of them are incorrect."
"I hope that people can keep their opinions to themselves and just support her and understand that it's her life and she'll do whatever she wants and it doesn't affect you."
Vonn's first Winter Olympics was in 2002 when she was just 17 years old.
While some athletes are one and done at the Olympics, Vonn would make the team again in 2006, 2010, and 2018. In 2014, Vonn was injured and worked as an Olympic commentator.
In her four Olympic appearances, Vonn earned three medals: one gold and two bronze.
Vonn is one of six women in the world who has won World Cup races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing: downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and super combined. As of January 22, 2026, Vonn had won 84 World Cup races in her career, placing her third in all-time career alpine skiing wins for women.
In 2019, citing injuries and chronic pain, Vonn hung up her skis and retired from the sport.
But in 2024, Vonn returned to the U.S. Ski Team, following the successful replacement surgery of her right knee, with her sights set on a fifth Winter Olympics appearance, and she made the team.
Then Vonn sustained her (ACL) injury. However, she continued to do training runs with a knee brace, confident she could still compete.
Nine days later, Vonn crashed hard in the women’s downhill. She had to be airlifted to a hospital.
Vonn shared an update on her condition and a message to the world on Instagram Monday with a photo of the moment her right pole and arm hooked one of the gates, throwing her off balance.
The five-time Olympian wrote:
"Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a story book ending or a fairy tail [sic], it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it. Because in Downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches."
"I was simply 5 inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash. My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever."
"Unfortunately, I sustained a complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly."
Vonn added:
"While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets. Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. I also knew that racing was a risk. It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport."
"And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is the also the beauty of life; we can try."
"I tried. I dreamt. I jumped."
The Olympian concluded:
"I hope if you take away anything from my journey it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying."
"I believe in you, just as you believed in me. ~ ❤️LV"
May Vonn be back on her feet again soon—trying, dreaming, and jumping.
