Sports 4 min read By Bethany Hadley
Vonn says 'small chance' of return after eight surgeries and wheelchair recovery
Lindsey Vonn has not ruled out a return to alpine skiing despite breaking her leg at the 2026 Winter Olympics, undergoing eight surgeries and spending nearly two months in a wheelchair.
Lindsey Vonn has said there remains a «small chance» she could return to competitive alpine skiing, despite suffering a broken leg at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics that required eight surgeries and left her in a wheelchair for almost two months.
Vonn, the first American woman to win Olympic gold in downhill skiing, was airlifted from the women's downhill course in February after a crash she described as the hardest injury of her life. She also tore her anterior cruciate ligament. Speaking at a panel for Zeta Live 2026, hosted by Zeta Global, she recounted the severity of the recovery and the uncertainty it has created about her future.
«I fell and I immediately knew that my leg was broken as an extreme amount of pain,» Vonn said. «And I would say this injury, like this crash, has been the hardest of my life.»
Despite that, the 41-year-old is named on the 2026-27 U.S. alpine skiing team pending her recovery, according to the Olympics website. She admitted the prospect of competing again is not entirely closed. «This Olympic run was a special and unique situation,» she said. «So from a sporting perspective, I mean, there is still a small chance that I may be crazy enough to try one more time.»
Vonn's career has been defined as much by resilience as by victory. Since 2007 she has suffered 14 different injuries, including MCL sprains, fractured bones and torn ACLs. Her record includes 84 World Cup wins, four World Cup titles, three Olympic medals and eight world championship medals. But she acknowledged that age has changed the calculus. At 41, she is the oldest member of the U.S. alpine skiing team by a wide margin.
«For me, it was like hanging on to what could have been,» she said. «That was something that, with both injuries, I don't deal with — because normally, I have plenty of time. I do my rehab. I come back and I win again, and I'm always fine. But this time, you know, I'm a little bit older.»
The recovery has been slower and more painful than any she has previously experienced. «But this injury, it took me, I would say, four months to get to the other side,» she continued. «Normally, I have surgery, it's shaped for a couple days, and then I'm like, okay, I'm making progress. And this one, I just never felt like I was making progress. So, staying tough and just knowing that step by step I'm going to get there is the only way I can mentally deal with that kind of pain.»
Vonn revealed in an Instagram post that shortly after the February crash her left leg may have needed to be amputated. She described her scars as «horrible» and said she had been in «a wheelchair for almost two months» with an «extended and extreme amount of pain.»
Her father, Alan Kildow, told the Associated Press in February that he believed her career was over. «She's 41 years old and this is the end of her career,» he said. «There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it.»
Vonn, however, framed her motivation differently. She said her injuries have given her a different perspective and motivated her to work harder. «Because I think you know when you have something you love and it's taken away, you realize how much you love it,» she said. Ski racing, she added, is «a dangerous sport, obviously, and it's kind of part of the job.»
She also described the mental difficulty of staying present during a long rehabilitation, but said she has always focused on long-term goals, a habit she traces to a 10-year plan she made with her father at the age of nine. Whether that plan now includes another Olympic run remains uncertain, but Vonn has not closed the door.
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