Source : ABC NEWS
Injuries are a part of sport.
In winter sports they’re second nature, the footnote at the end of every chapter in an athlete’s career.
Perform these death-defying feats long enough and it’s not a case of if, but when.
Lindsey Vonn knew this.
This is the woman who, in 2019, raced the world championships with multiple fractures in her leg and a torn LCL. She won a bronze medal.
She came into the Games having done enormous damage to her left knee at the Crans Montana World Cup in Switzerland.
She completely tore the ACL, she announced in an Instagram post.
But most revealing was what she said later in that same caption, saying scans had also revealed “meniscal tears, but it’s unclear how much of that was there previously and what was new from the crash”.
No ACL, no problem for Lindsey Vonn in her practice runs. (Getty Images: Agence Zoom/Christophe Pallot)
Meniscus tears are sort of injuries that would keep most people housebound for weeks or desperate for relieving surgery and Vonn wasn’t even sure when she’d done it.
Built differently is a term that’s been bandied around for a while.
Used to pain. Accepting of it. At one with the toll excellence takes on the human body.
But she is made of the same fragile parts as the rest of us mortals, parts that have let her down repeatedly.
This is a woman who had retired for six years due to injuries.
A partial knee replacement (in her right knee) gave her one more chance to achieve the remarkable.
“But why? Everyone seems to be asking me that question,” Vonn wrote on Instagram the night before her race.
“I think the answer is simple. I just love ski racing.”
Some had questioned whether it was responsible for her to race, those armchair fans who become quadrennial experts in all things winter sport given the opportunity to turn their faux expertise to the ability of someone to do what Vonn was doing with such an injury, or even to question the veracity of it at all.
Vonn shut some of the more legitimate critics down with her usual brilliant bluntness.
“lol, thanks doc,” she replied to Brian Sutterer, a sports doctor with over 61,000 followers on X.
“Just because it seems impossible to you doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
And despite the awfulness of her crash on Sunday, she proved that it was very much possible with some vintage runs in practice.
Spectators watched in horror from the bottom of the run. (Reuters: Annegret Hilse)
Vonn completed just two runs of downhill practice as a result of the weather in Cortina d’Ampezzo earlier in the week.
But in those runs she looked good. Strong. Still a medal contender, even.
But the 41-year-old’s Olympic return, the never-ending story of this Minnesota legend’s extraordinary career, came to an abrupt and excruciating halt not with the glory of a medal, but surrounded by medical staff on the upper slopes of the Tofane ski centre.
Vonn, wearing bib number 13 for the superstitious among you, lost control at the top of the Olympia delle Tofane course and caught her skis in the snow, which twisted the American around like a rag doll, each spin ripping and tearing at her already ruined knee.
Her scream of pain was enough to strike deep in the heart of anyone watching, silencing spectators at the bottom of the hill in Cortina and in fan zones across the country.
Everyone stood, silent. Transfixed. Stunned by the brutality of the ending to this story.
Fans at the base of the mountain were shocked into silence. (Getty Images: Mattia Ozbot)
The silence was extraordinary.
Throughout the lengthy delay fans didn’t know how to react. On the coverage the thrumming of the approaching helicopter seemed to be the only sound audible in the entire valley.
But such is the manner of downhill racing, there was little time to lose.
And before long, as Vonn dangled from under the medical chopper and was taken to hospital, the racing continued.
Of course, the suggestion will be that Vonn should not have competed.
That it was too much to ask of her broken body to test itself under the extraordinary demands of a downhill.
She wasn’t alone in crashing out on this most testing of courses though.
Lindsey Vonn’s desperately sad final Olympic journey. (Getty Images: PA Images/Andrew Milligan)
Andorran skier Cande Moreno had a horror accident on the most vertiginous slopes, her knee bending inwards in nauseating fashion as she overshot a jump.
As far as we know, she had both ACL’s intact when she set off from the top of the mountain.
It was another American, Breezy Johnson, who won the event.
But she has negative experiences on this slope too, tearing her ACL on the Tofane course four years ago, an injury that kept her out of the Beijing 2022 Games.
“I’m maybe the only person on this slope that’s ever actually raced it with a torn ACL, so I know it’s quite difficult off those jumps,” she said after training on Saturday, adding more after receiving her gold medal.
“My heart goes out to her. I know how difficult it is to ski this course and how sometimes, because you love this course so much, when you crash on it, and it hurts you like that, it hurts you that much worse.”
The American crowd knew it was a possibility. But the risk was real for all the women competing. (Getty)
Other racers were quick to react as well.
“It’s always horrible for us athletes when we see one of our fellow athletes get hurt or get carried away because, whether you want it or not, many of us have been through it,” Italian skier Laura Pirovano said.
“It’s something that is truly unpleasant, especially at an Olympics, on a beautiful day like this, on a beautiful track.
“She cared a lot about this race and the whole world knew it, so it is always a hard blow.”
But she, like many others, knew that it would take more than an injury to stop Vonn from trying.
“My heart hurts for Lindsey … [she] has really been a huge mentor for all of us, and seeing her go down like that, it really sucks,” fellow American Jacqueline Wiles said.
“It doesn’t change anything about her legacy. She’s a fighter, and that’s the way that she’s going to go out and ski every time.”
Lindsey Vonn had proved she was ready to race by competing well in practice. (Getty Images: Agence Zoom/Christophe Pallot)
Fight to the end. Battle to survive. The very sporting principles of the Olympic movement.
“It is the fundamental basis of the Olympic movement: The important thing in life is not to triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well,” said modern Olympics founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
Vonn’s coach, Aksel Lund Svindal, admitted on Saturday that he had been nervous about her competing.
“I’m different nervous [about] tomorrow,” Svindal said on Saturday.
“Yesterday, I was nervous that something would happen. Tomorrow, it’s race day. Obviously, you don’t want anything to happen to her, but you also want her to be fast.
“Yesterday was about, ‘Please let this be OK’.
“Tomorrow is like, ‘Let’s go and be fast.'”
And on Saturday his heart would have been in his mouth as Vonn appeared to collapse a little in on the rollers.
“You can tell she looks like she’s trying to land on the right foot,” he noted, although said he was not worried.
Perhaps he should have been.
But let’s be honest. It still wouldn’t have made the darnedest difference to Vonn.
Having fought so hard to make a miraculous comeback, a successful one at that with three World Cup victories this season, something like this wouldn’t have stopped her.
She would have rolled the dice in any case. One last bid for Olympic glory.
To hell with the consequences.
