American Olympian Lindsey Vonn needed surgery to \u00ab\u00a0stabilize a fracture reported in left leg\u00a0\u00bb following a hard crash at the Winter Olympics on Sunday.<\/b>
\nLindsey Vonn underwent surgery \u00ab\u00a0to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg\u00a0\u00bb, officials at an Italian hospital said Sunday hours after the Olympian crashed hard during her run.
Vonn powered through a ruptured ACL to have an attempt to medal at the alpine skiing women\u2019s downhill event. She lost control a few seconds into her run and crashed in the first sector. She writhed in pain as medical professionals tended to her.
A helicopter was dispatched to whisk Vonn off the mountain. She was taken to a clinic in Cortina, then transferred to a hospital in Treviso.
The Ca\u2019Foncello hospital released a statement on Vonn, saying she was being \u00ab\u00a0treated by a multidisciplinary team. The U.S. Ski Team said Vonn was \u00ab\u00a0in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.\u00a0\u00bb
\u00ab\u00a0She\u2019ll be OK, but it\u2019s going to be a bit of a process\u00a0\u00bb, U.S. Ski and Snowboard\u2019s chief of sport Anouk Patty said. \u00ab\u00a0This sport\u2019s brutal and people need to remember when they\u2019re watching (that) these athletes are throwing themselves down a mountain and going really, really fast.\u00a0\u00bb
Breezy Johnson picked up the gold medal in the event, notching Team USA\u2019s first in the 2026 Milan Cortina Games.
\u00ab\u00a0I don\u2019t claim to know what she\u2019s going through, but I do know what it is to be here, to be fighting for the Olympics, and to have this course burn you and to watch those dreams die\u00a0\u00bb, said Johnson, who missed out on the 2022 Games due to a knee injury. \u00ab\u00a0I can\u2019t imagine the pain that she\u2019s going through and it\u2019s not the physical pain \u2014 we can deal with physical pain \u2014 but the emotional pain is something else.\u00a0\u00bb
International Ski and Snowboard Federation president Johan Eliasch called Vonn\u2019s crash \u00ab\u00a0tragic, but it\u2019s ski racing.\u00a0\u00bb
\u00ab\u00a0I can only say thank you for what she has done for our sport\u00a0\u00bb, he said, \u00ab\u00a0because this race has been the talk of the games and it\u2019s put our sport in the best possible light.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n