Lindsey Vonn is heading home.
In her second post in 24 hours, Vonn reported that her fourth surgery of the week went well and that it will allow her to head back to the U.S. – where more procedures on her broken left leg await.
“Surgery went well today!” she wrote. “Thankfully I will be able to finally go back to the US ! Once I’m back I will give you more updates and info about my injury…. But until then, as I sit here in my bed reflecting, I have a few thoughts I’d like to share…”
Vonn, 41, fell 13 seconds into her downhill run Sunday at the Olympics, a race she attempted despite rupturing her left anterior cruciate ligament nine days before. Vonn had come out of retirement in 2024 to attempt a comeback after having successful partial knee replacement surgery.
That comeback was a smashing success. Vonn once again became the world’s dominant downhill skier. But what always made Vonn great, that willingness to take risks and ski right on the edge of recklessness — and sometimes over it — also made her prone to crashing and serious injuries.
That’s what unfolded Sunday in what was supposed to be the culmination of her comeback.
In her latest social media post, Vonn said she has spent a lot of time lately reading messages and seeing comments that what happened to her made a lot of people sad.
“Please, don’t be sad,” she wrote. “Empathy, love and support I welcome with an open heart, but please not sadness or sympathy. I hope instead it gives you strength to keep fighting, because that is what I am doing and that is what I will continue to do. Always.”
Vonn said she knew what she was getting herself into, that crashing was a possibility, just as it always is.
“The mountain always holds the cards,” she wrote.
She took the risk willingly, and did so because it’s the only way she knows how to ski and to live.
“I never want to cross finish line and say,’what if?’” she wrote.
She said she was stronger physically in that moment than she had been at other times in her career, including when she won medals. She described her mind as, “Clear, focused, hungry, aggressive yet completely calm… just as I had practiced over the past few months when I was on the podium in every downhill this season. 2 wins and leading the standings… that was all a test to prepare me for the Olympics.”
That guaranteed nothing, of course, just a chance for her to take the gamble that comes with chasing dreams.
“The ride was worth the fall,” she wrote. “When I close my eyes at night I don’t have regrets and the love I have for skiing remains. I am still looking forward to the moment when I can stand on the top of the mountain once more. And I will.”