“Emotionally, I can't make a decision right now”

It's been almost three months since the start of the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, but Lindsey Vonn's emotional wound is far from healed. On February 8, the American skier had a dramatic fall during the downhill event, after which she was airlifted to the hospital.

She was operated on in Italy for a complex fracture of the tibia, but also of the fibular head and the upper part of the tibia. Vonn entered Olympic competition just nine days after tearing her anterior cruciate ligament during the descent of the Crans-Montana World Cup stage.

It all turned into an ordeal for Lindsey, having to endure eight operations following her accident at the Games and coming very close to having her leg amputated. And it's not over: another intervention is needed to repair the damaged ligament.

Remarkable in her will to come back despite the many medical issues she's suffered throughout her career, Vonn is now faced with a decision she still doesn't feel ready to make. Will he compete again – this could only happen in at least a year and a half, as he needs to recover – or will he retire?

Lindsey Vonn: “Maybe I'll retire. Maybe I'll never race again and that would be perfectly fine”

“I just don't want to jump to any conclusions or even speculate about what I might do“, she said in an interview with the AP. “Maybe I'll retire. I may never race again and that would be perfectly fine, but I'm not emotionally in a position to make a decision right now“, said the Olympic downhill champion from Vancouver 2010.

However, he points out that he would have returned to the “retirement” situation if he had a comeback season that was close to his career best. ITalmost six years since he put his skis aside, he decided to return, aiming for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Games.

He reknotted the thread on December 7, 2024, on the way down from Copper Mountain (Colorado), as part of the International Ski Federation's Fall Festival. He was ranked 24th out of 45 participants, but his results improved spectacularly after each start. In March 2025, at Sun Valley (Idaho), also came the first podium in the last seven years.

All promising until Olympic disaster. He had had injuries before, including a titanium implant in his right knee, but what happened on the Olimpia delle Tofane slope was different. Eight surgeries for this problem alone, after having previously had nine in total for all the other medical troubles he suffered.

Lindsey Vonn: 'I can handle a lot of pain, but this was extreme'

“It's a much different injury in terms of the severity of the damage and the realization that I could have lost my leg. Everything looked so bad“, she told the same source. “I can handle a lot of pain, but this was extreme. I was not in the world of pain as I was with this injury, compared to the previous ones“.

Progress can be seen in the medical gym, he went from a wheelchair to crutches, and in a few days he will be able to walk short distances without support again. Vonn said she hasn't discussed what a return to skiing would look like with her doctor, saying they both prefer to focus on that stage of her recovery.

“Anyway, nothing concrete will happen until 2027-28 because I have one more surgery to get my metal implants out and replace my ACL. That has to happen,” Vonn said. “Once I get my ligament fixed it's going to be another six months, so I'd say at least a year and a half before I can really get back to 100%, even just for gym training,” she painted the gray picture of a possible return.

I'm still, like I said, in a survival mode, where I just want to get past this stage and be able to assess where I am in my life – Lindsey Vonn

“I want to take stock of what I have achieved, consider what could be, and make decisions from a much better position than where I am now. I don't want to make a decision now because I think it would be hasty and probably too emotional and I don't want to make a mistake”, concluded Lindsey Vonn, whose 84 World Cup victories place her second in women's skiing, behind only her compatriot Mikaela Shiffrin (110).