THEThe silence that fell on the Olympia delle Tofane, broken only by the blades of the helicopter in flight, is the ending that no one would have wanted to write. Lindsey Vonn fell in the downhill race at Milano Cortina 2026and with her the dream of a feat that smelled of legend slipped away. The American skier, at 41 years old, saw her race of a lifetime end after just twelve seconds. A cloud of snow, a scream of pain that froze the audience in Cortina and those infinite moments in which the loudspeakers remained silent, while help reached the Queen on the ground.
Lindsey Vonn, the fall and the screams of pain in Cortina
Lindsey Vonn’s participation in these Games was in itself a miracle of will. Returned to racing after the stop in 2019, stopped for some time and with one right total knee replacementVonn had not given up even in front of the rupture of the cruciate ligament of the left knee, remedied ten days ago in Crans Montana.
The moment of Lindsey Vonn’s fall in Cortina (Screengrab by IOC via Getty Images)
He had chosen to challenge fate and pain with a conscious gamble: «I suffered a complete tear of my anterior cruciate ligament», she confessed before the start, explaining however that she felt safe thanks to a special guardian. But on a jump, a handful of meters from the start, the body presented the bill: a sideways landing, the terrible blow on the knees, the screams of pain and the dream that turns into a nightmare.
How’s Lindsey Vonn?
The champion was loaded onto the toboggan amid emotional applause from the grandstand. And everyone’s thoughts went to the fragility of that “titanium” physique who won everything, but who today seems to have said enough. Lindsey Vonn was transported to the Codivilla hospital in Cortina for the first urgent checks.
The air ambulance takes Lindsey Vonn to hospital after her fall in Cortina (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
The champion was urgently transferred to Ca’ Foncello hospital in Treviso. Here, in the late afternoon, a multidisciplinary team subjected her to a delicate procedure Orthopedic surgery to stabilize the fracture in his left leg. A very hard blow for the athlete, precisely on that limb already put to the test by the recent cruciate rupture in Crans Montana.
To know the definitive extent of the damage and, above all, to understand whether this injury will write the final word on his incredible career, we will have to wait until new official medical bulletinwhich the Treviso Local Health Authority 2 will issue in the late morning of Monday 9 February.
Best wishes from my friend Sofia Goggia
Also Sofia Goggiafriend and rival who finished third at the finish lineexpressed his closeness: «I’m sorry she was taken away by helicopter. I wish you all the best». For now, only those desperate cries remain that echo among the peaks where Lindsey has triumphed twelve times. A track that loved her like no other and which today, unfortunately, has become the stage of her most bitter farewell.
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