Lindsey Vonn Reflects on ‘Hard Day’ After Horrific Olympics Crash: ‘The Mental Battle Started Today’

“The battle of the mind can be dark and hard and unrelenting,” the Olympic athlete said 

e Olympic athlete said

Lindsey Vonn in July 2025
Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty

NEED TO KNOW

Lindsey Vonn speaks candidly about her mental and physical recovery

The professional athlete suffered a horrific injury while skiing at the 2026 Winter Olympics

She required a medical airlift and five surgeries, and is now expected to be in a wheelchair for the next two months

Lindsey Vonn is beginning to process the severity of her injury at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Feb. 24, the alpine ski racer, 41, admitted, “Today was a hard day.”

“My physical battle began the second I got hurt but the mental battle started today,” Vonn wrote. “It hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s a battle I’m used to because I’ve done it so many times. I have always learned from every injury. Each one has made me a better and stronger person in different ways… but the battle of the mind can be dark and hard and unrelenting.”

Lindsey Vonn of Team United States crashes at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics
Credit: Screengrab by IOC via Getty

The athlete — who won four World Cup overall championships with titles in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012 — added that someone close to her likened her to a “master at the psychological game of life…”

“I don’t know if that’s true…. I do know hard days are coming but I will find a way back to the top of the mountain of life,” she concluded.

On Feb. 8, just 13 seconds into her run in the women’s downhill event during the Milan Cortina Games, Vonn suffered a horrifying crash one week after tearing her ACL.

After approximately 15 minutes of medical staff tending to the skier, she was placed on a stability board before being airlifted by helicopter to a hospital.

“Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would,” Vonn said, breaking her silence on social media the following day. “It wasn’t a story book ending or a fairy tail, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it. Because in Downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches.”

Elsewhere in her lengthy Feb. 9 Instagram post, the Olympian said her “ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever,” adding that she “sustained a complex tibia fracture” that would “require multiple surgeries to fix properly.”

Last week, following her fifth surgery, Vonn confessed that she was “struggling a bit” due to “the extent of the trauma.”

Lindsey Vonn at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games
Credit: Daniel Kopatsch/VOIGT/Getty

In keeping with her promise to keep her fans updated on her recovery, on Monday, Feb. 23, she said the crash was so bad that it almost resulted in her leg being amputated.

“After two weeks, I finally made it out of the hospital. It has been quite the journey and by far the most extreme and painful and challenging injury I’ve ever faced in my entire life times one hundred. I’ll give you the full rundown,” Vonn said in her Instagram video.

She added that because of her complex tibia fracture, in which “everything was in pieces,” including her “muscles, nerves and tendons,” extreme measures needed to be taken.

“Dr. Tom Hackett saved my leg. He saved my leg from being amputated,” she said, becoming emotional.

Vonn, who won a gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games in the women’s downhill event, is expected to be in a wheelchair for the next couple of months as she recovers. However, she ended her video on a positive note.

“It’s going to be a long road, but I always fight,” she said. “I’ll keep going. No regrets. I just appreciate all the love and support. It’s been amazing. Overwhelming to an extent. I wish it had ended differently, really, but I’d rather go down swinging than not trying at all.”