Lindsey Vonn completes downhill training without issue ahead of Sunday’s medal event
By Dana O’Neil, CNN
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (CNN) — Lindsey Vonn line danced, some sort of Electric Slide meets the Cotton Eyed Joe. She screamed, sending some hoots and hollers in the direction of teammate Jacqueline Wiles. She stretched. She waited.
Most importantly, Vonn skied – down the 2,000-foot drop at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, through its turns, over its jumps and finally, safely across the finish line.
Exactly one week after completely tearing her ACL in a warm-up race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, and wearing only a light brace to protect it, Vonn completed her official Olympics training run without issue, crossing in 1 minute, 40.33 to finish 11th among the 43 skiers who finished the run.
She paused after finishing for a quick hug from teammate Breezy Johnson before lingering off to the side to watch the next skier come down. She then left, seeming relaxed as she exited, walking with her poles in hand.
Needing only to exit the starting gate to qualify for Sunday’s downhill final, Vonn skied conservatively as she test drove what exactly her knee could do. She swept wide on a few turns, but her coach had nothing but praise and awe for the 41-year-old star afterward.
“She was smart,’’ Aksel Lund Svindal – a two-time Olympic gold medalist himself – said. “No big risk. And to me, it looked symmetrical, like I didn’t see any difference right and left. And I think that’s kind of what we’re looking for today. I thought it went really, really well. She was, let’s put it this way, she’s tough.’’
Vonn left without speaking to reporters and Svindal wasn’t sure if she would participate in Saturday’s final training run but he seemed more than optimistic that she would enter the starting gate for her fifth Olympic Games on Sunday.
“You’ve seen earlier this season, when she skis well, she can win,’’ he said, referencing her two downhill victories this season on the World Cup circuit. “And where from what I saw today, I think she can. I mean, it’s going to be hard, but I think she could possibly.’’
It would seem silly to count her out. On what should have been a nerve-wracking day as she sped down a vertical autobahn on skis with a good knee made of titanium and a bad knee lacking an ACL, Vonn appeared entirely unbothered.
Fog caused a delay of over an hour, which presumably might make someone wondering if their knee could function. Instead as an emcee at the bottom of the mountain vamped to pass the time, Vonn briefly worked with resistance bands on her arms before joining her teammates in a ski-booted line dance.
“I don’t know what it was,’’ Johnson said. “Our PT was in charge. She knew the line dance. I obviously was the worst at it. There’s a reason I do this and not ice dancing.’’
Once training resumed, the conditions were less than ideal. Heavy snow – upwards of 12 inches – fell in the region on Wednesday, and while fresh snow might seem good for racing, it is not. Skiers prefer something more akin to a hockey rink, and the snow combined with warm-ish weather made the slope feel, as Johnson called it, “like soap.’’
Yet there stood Vonn at 1:15 p.m. local time, in the starting gate in bib number 10. As the announcer at the bottom of the mountain yelled accurately, “And now the moment everyone has been waiting for!’’ Vonn pushed out. One hundred seconds later, she crossed the finish line, upright and intact.
After finishing, Vonn chatted briefly with Johnson – who raced just before her – at the bottom of the slope, pulled off her knee brace and then walked the circumference of the mixed zone, eyeing the big board as Wiles raced. Wiles crossed just as Vonn neared the finish area and Vonn hooted and hollered at her 1:38.9 time, the fastest on the day, before exiting the mountain venue.
No pressure?
In a strange way, the pressure on Vonn has entirely flipped; it is all internal now. Before the injury last week, she spoke about these Games almost as a separate journey for herself. A new chapter in a very epic journey.
Of course, she wanted to win. You get the feeling that Vonn does not wake up without wanting to win something. But Cortina was more internal and personal, about being able to do something – at her age, with her surgically replaced knee – because she wanted to see if she could.
Then Vonn went out and won two World Cup races and, Winter Olympics being what they are, her name recognition and her story turned her into the face and the narrative of these Games. Could Lindsey do it again? Defy logic? Age? All of it?
And January 30 came, Vonn was helicoptered off the course in Switzerland, and she opened up on Tuesday about the extent of her injuries. It is an entirely different mental battle, of course, to wonder if a body can win than worry about what it can do. From the jump, she told her team she wanted to do everything she could to race in Cortina. She has raced there regularly throughout her career and speaks of the course fondly.
“She said she was gonna go, and she dictates what’s going to happen,’’ Svindal said. “It’s not like every physio raised their hand right away and said, ‘There’s 100 percent chance of this being good on Sunday.’’’
The team, Svindal said, worked diligently and smartly to make sure that she could go, but you got the feeling – reading between the lines – that there was not really a scenario where Vonn would agree to not at least try.
“I knew what my chances were before the crash, and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today,’’ she said on Tuesday. “But I know there’s still a chance, and as long as there’s a chance, I will try.’’
But until Vonn actually pushed out of the starting gate, no one really knew what would happen. “This is important for everyone,’’ Svindal said.
“If this works, it’s awesome. If something happened, it would be bad, but she’s been very committed since the first day and she’s convinced it will work.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
