Thousands of athletes across the country will be competing to make their dreams come true during the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.
One of the biggest names, regardless of event, is Lindsey Vonn, the veteran skier who recently made an incredible — and improbable — comeback to competitive skiing after announcing her retirement in early 2019.
Her road to Cortina has not been without hurdles, however. The 41-year-old Vonn suffered a major setback in the days leading up to the Olympics, tearing the ACL in her left knee after crashing during a training session on Jan. 30, less than a week before the games were set to begin on Feb. 6.
But the injury-riddled Vonn vowed to compete in the Olympics anyway, stating definitively that her Olympic dreams for 2026 were not over.
So how will one of the most decorated skiers of all time compete in the Olympics on a torn ACL? The Sporting News spoke with several medical professionals about what it might be like for her.
MORE: 2026 Winter Olympic viewing guide, including schedules and how to watch each event
When did Lindsey Vonn tear her ACL?
During a practice run in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, on Jan. 30 — her final tuneup before the Milan Games — Vonn took a fall that sent her flying into the course’s protective netting. She was airlifted off the course, and her road back to the Olympics seemed doomed to say the least.
The scene was a gnarly one.
During Vonn’s run, she was seen taking a sharp turn before losing her balance coming off a jump. After an off-balance landing, her skis compressed, which put her on her back and sent her skidding into the net. She was down for several seconds, grabbing at her left knee and yelling audibly in pain. She was able to ski down the mountain gingerly before receiving medical attention at the bottom.
After the crash, she posted on her Instagram that she was discussing the situation with her doctors while undergoing further testing.
“This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics,” Vonn wrote.” But if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback.”
During a Feb. 3 press conference, Vonn announced that she had completely torn her ACL but vowed to compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics anyway. Vonn will be required to race in at least one training session, either on Friday or Saturday, while the actual women’s downhill is scheduled for Sunday.
Somehow, some way, the American Olympian is approaching the event as though everything is fine.
“After extensive consultations with doctors, intense therapy, physical tests as well as skiing today, I have determined I am capable of competing in the Olympic Downhill on Sunday,” Vonn wrote on Instagram. Of course I will still need to do one training run, as is required to race on Sunday, but… I am confident in my body’s ability to perform. Despite my injuries my knee is stable, I do not have swelling and my muscles are firing and reacting as they should. I will obviously be continuing to evaluate with my medical team on a daily basis to make sure we are making smart decisions but I have every intention of competing on Sunday.”
MORE: Inside the Ralph Lauren–designed USA Olympic team outfits
How can Lindsey Vonn ski with a torn ACL?
ACL injuries in skiing are quite common. It’s estimated that nearly 20,000 people in the United States alone suffer ACL injuries during ski-related incidents each year.
“It doesn’t take a big injury to tear the ACL,” Dr. E. Lyle Cain told The Sporting News via phone. “But anything that grabs the ski and twists it with your ski going out away from your body, we call external rotation will cause the ACL to pop in some people.”
Dr. E. Lyle Cain Jr. is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in arthroscopy and the treatment of sports-related injuries. He works at the renowned Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Center in Birmingham, Ala., and has treated NFL stars such as Bryce Young, Tua Tagovailoa, Jalen Hurts, and Patrick Surtain. Dr. Cain adds that ACL injuries in ski accidents typically occur when skis remain attached to the foot during a low-velocity fall.
In Olympic downhill skiing, athletes navigate tight turns at speeds of 70 to 80 miles per hour while managing jumps and changing course conditions throughout a run. According to doctors, the sport’s very foundation is, in some ways, a breeding ground for these types of injuries.
“It’s the energy and the rotational aspect of things,” Dr. Kyle Cox, an orthopedic and sports medicine surgeon with Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute in Orlando, Fla., told The Sporting News in a phone interview about how skiing puts the ACL at risk.
Dr. Cox played Division I soccer at the University of Central Florida, and completed a residency in orthopedic surgery at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. He also completed a fellowship in sports medicine orthopedic surgery at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala.
“You’re wearing these skis, which basically gives your lower leg a huge lever arm to rotate against,” Dr. Cox continued. “Whereas, your normal foot is about a foot or so in length, but your skis are anywhere from five to six feet in length. So if you catch an edge, or if the ski rotates externally in some way and causes your knee to pivot inwards, it places the ACL at a lot higher risk of rupture from the rotational forces.”
It’s not as though the situation is unprecedented. As a skier, Vonn is no stranger to this type of injury. She tore her ACL in her right knee and unknowingly raced on it in December 2013, a situation that ultimately caused her to miss the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Italian skier Sofia Goggia won silver in the 2022 Winter Olympics just three weeks after partially tearing her ACL. Downhill skier Breezy Johnson tore her ACL in 2018.
As for Vonn’s ost recent injury, her coaches appear confident in her ability to compete despite the setback.
“I’m pretty confident that she can still pull off this dream,” Vonn’s head coach Chris Knight told The Associated Press on Feb. 4. “I’ve got no doubts in my mind that this is going to be OK.”
Knight added that Vonn is doing box jumps, in addition to working out in a pool, skiing and wearing a weighted vest Perhaps most importantly, he says that her knee has no swelling or pain.
Lindsey Vonn has just posted a video of her squatting and doing other exercises while having a ruptured ACL.
Her toughness is on another level.
(🎥: LindseyVonn/IG)#MilanoCortina2026 | #WinterOlympics | #Olympics | #AlpineSkiing pic.twitter.com/k6INJoEXJf
— Team USA Olympics Updates and Coverage (@TeamUSAOLYCov) February 5, 2026
Like any injury, every ACL mishap is different person to person. Some who tear their ACLs are completely immobilized and experience severe pain. Others don’t even realize anything is wrong.
“Some of the milder recovery processes like it sounds as though she has is just because the ACL doesn’t bleed very much sometimes when it tears,” Dr. Cain said. “It has some blood vessels in the ligament, so when you tear the ACL, for a lot of people it bleeds, and the knee swells up. And the next day, it looks like a stiff, big watermelon—it’s huge. Whereas other patients, when they tear their ACL, it doesn’t bleed much, and the next day, they look pretty normal. In fact, a lot of ACLs get missed because of that. The patient thinks they just had a little sprain or something. And they’re not hurting too bad the next day.”
Several athletes have withstood ACL tears to keep competing, sometimes knowingly or unknowingly. Buffalo Bills receiver played in the second half of the wild-card playoff game against the Jacksonville Jaguars with a torn ACL just this past season.
Soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic played without an ACL for six months, and helped lead AC Milan win the Serie A title in 2022. Former NBA guard DeJaun Blair played without both his ACLs over seven NBA seasons.
“I operated recently on an NFL player who’s been playing three seasons with an ACL deficient knee,” Dr. Cain said. “It was noted at the NFL combine that he had an ACL tear, probably in college, but [he] didn’t know about it, and he’s still playing three years of NFL football—never had it fixed. He has enough stability in his knee otherwise, enough muscle control and whatever his mechanics are. He’s what people call a compensator. There are certainly people who have ACL tears that can compensate and have a relatively stable knee without surgery. They’re just not really common.”
Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Buffalo Bills running back Thurman Thomas played a majority of his career on a partially torn ACL. Fellow Hall of Famer John Elway played his entire career, which included two Super Bowl victories, without an ACL. Although in Elway’s case, ACL repair surgery wasn’t as commonplace as it is today.
“That mental and physical resilience has a lot to do with it in terms of how much she’s willing to tolerate, in terms of stability, Dr. Cox said of the pain associated with ACL tears. “There are some folks who tear their ACL and their exam feels okay, but you have the MRI finding of a torn ACL, and perhaps there are other structures in her knee that are compensating for the ACL. No one ACL tears the same.”
For Vonn, her comeback to the sport—and making the 2026 Winter Olympics—is remarkable in itself. In 2019, Vonn announced her retirement from professional skiing.
Over the course of her career, which dates back to 2000, she has participated in four Winter Olympics and another 21 World Cups. She has eight Olympic medals, including two gold, as well as 84 World Cup victories. In 2016, her 20th World Cup crystal globe title won her the overall record for men or women, and she is considered one of the greatest skiers in the history of her sport, male or female. She has accomplished all this while coming back from numerous injuries, including both knees, sustained over the course of her high-level career.
In April 2024, Vonn underwent a partial titanium knee replacement in her right knee — not the same knee she tore a few days ago. No longer dealing with the immense pain she had previously, she announced her return to competitive skiing in November 2024. In March 2025, she finished second in the super-G at the World Cup season finals and won her 83rd World Cup victory in December 2025, qualifying for the 2026 Winter Olympics shortly thereafter.
There is nothing left to prove for Vonn, who had already cemented herself as one of the greatest skiers on earth. But given that this is Vonn’s last chance at competing in the Olympics, her doctors and medical advisors presumably understand her desire to compete.
Dr. Cain describes the risk-versus-reward of the situation, and it’s one that applies across the board.
“There are always risk-benefit discussions,” Cain said. “What’s the risk of not doing it versus the risk of doing the surgery? What’s the risk of competing versus the benefit of competing? And I think the Olympics, [an] NFL championship game, Super Bowl, college championship game, last game you’re ever going to play in college, last game you’re playing in high school. There are certainly benefit discussions where the player and the family feel like the risk—even though there is risk—the risk is far lower than the potential benefits, such as Olympics, so I think that comes into play.
The reality is the risk to the knee once the ACL is torn. We have a lot of theoretical risks, you know, further damage to the knee, worsening of meniscus tears and damage to the meniscus, larger knee dislocation-type mechanisms, things where you cause further damage. We worry about those a lot, but they’re not super common.”
MORE: Live updates on Lindsey Vonn’s ACL injury and her quest to compete in Milan
What is a torn ACL?
Human knees have two “cruciate” (X-shaped) ligaments, in the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). Both ligaments are the primary central stabilizers of the knee, which are important for rotational stability. The ACL specifically connects the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia), and it helps to prevent the tibia from slipping in front of the femur. Together with the PCL, it keeps the knee stabilized during front-to-back movements.
Photo via the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons
“I often liken the knee to a hinge joint,” Dr. Cox said. “It’s a hinge joint with a slight amount of rotation. But without your ACL, your knee becomes more like a sloppy hinge with a lot more rotation. In the athletic community, the ACL is particularly important for pivoting or lateral agility-type movements. So that’s why you hear when [an] NFL player, or an NBA player, tears their ACL, they’re not able to perform lateral pivoting movements at the level that they are probably required to do without their ACL. So in general, that’s why it’s such an important ligament. It’s the primary stabilizer to those types of high-energy activities.”
Vonn will be skiing in her downhill event in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy while wearing a knee brace. While both Dr. Cox and Dr. Lyle contend that a brace can’t do much to prevent rotational twisting of the knee, it can provide at least some additional stability.
“It doesn’t keep it from re-tearing down the road,” Dr. Cain said, adding that he usually advises his athletes to wear a brace after recovering from ACL surgery. “But there’s definitely a psychological component to it. I think in her case they’ll probably try to give her a brace that gives her as much control as possible, as much tightness around the knee to your stability without affecting her function.”
Ruptured ACL vs. torn ACL
A torn ACL is the same thing as a ruptured ACL, although the terms have been used interchangeably in the various reports surrounding Vonn. A “rupture” means that the ACL ligament is no longer connected to either the femur or the tibia.
Photo via the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons
How many times has Lindsey Vonn torn her ACL?
While 2026 marks the first time Vonn has torn her left ACL, she did tear her right ACL and MCL in 2013. She also suffered a torn LCL, the ligament on the outer edge of the knee that connects the leg’s fibula to the femur, in her left knee in 2018. She kept competing on the knee, but underwent surgery on it in early 2019, shortly after announcing her retirement.
MORE: Lindsey Vonn’s full career injury history
How old is Lindsey Vonn?
Vonn is 41 years old, which makes her one of the oldest Olympians on Team USA for 2026. Team USA has five athletes over 40 in this year’s games, including 44-year-old snowboarder Nick Baumgartner, bobsledder Kaillie Armbruster Humphries (40) and her teammate, Elana Meyers-Taylor, is also 41.
While casual fans might view Vonn’s age as a hindrance to her ability to compete, several high-level athletes have competed well within their 40s, such as Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Olympic swimmer Dara Torres and Venus and Serena Williams.
“All these athletes who are competing at the highest level in their sports well into their 40s, and are functioning like a 20 year old,” Dr. Cox said? I think that’s where it’s difficult to allow age by itself, to be a medical decision maker. It’s really the conglomerate of information and the patient’s functional status and their goals and aspirations. If you take 100 41 year olds, that conversation is going to look a lot different depending on the person right with their own medical history.”
Lindsey Vonn injuries list
Vonn has experienced a multitude of different injuries. Here’s a list of her most substantial ones, dating back to 2006.
- Feb. 2006: Bruised hip
- Feb. 2007: ACL sprain (right knee)
- February 2009: Lacerated right thumb
- December 2009: Bruised left forearm
- February 2010: Bruised right shin, broken right pinkie
- February 2011: Concussion
- February 2013: Torn ACL, MCL, tibial plateau fracture (right knee)
- August 2013: Broken left ankle
- February 2016: Fractures in left knee
- November 2016: Fractured humerus bone in right arm
- December 2017: Acute facet (spinal joint) dysfunction
- December 2017: Acute facet (spinal joint) dysfunction
- November 2018: Completely torn LCL (left knee), three tibial plateau fractures in left leg
- April 2024: Partial knee replacement (right knee)
- Jan. 2026: ACL tear (left knee)
Vonn’s 2024 partial knee replacement on her right knee, which involved using titanium components to replace parts of her knee, is what helped her return to skiing pain-free.
“The partial knee replacement changed my life,” Vonn told People Magazine in Feb. 2025. Not only did it take my pain away, but it allowed me to go back to what I love to do, which is skiing.”
It’s no secret that Vonn knows how to rehab from injuries. After over two decades in the sport, she was already one of the greatest skiers of all time, well before she un-retired. Throwing in the towel after a setback that she’s come back from less than one week before her last-ever Olympics? A non-starter.
“Well, I will make it to the starting gate,” Vonn said in her Feb. 3 press conference. “But, it’s already been one of the best chapters of my life so far. I think this would be the best comeback I’ve done so far, definitely the most dramatic that’s for sure. But I think if you look at everything I’ve been through in my life, in my skiing career, in my life in general, you know I’ve been through a lot and this is another amazing chapter. I don’t know if it’s the best chapter, but it’s a pretty damn good comeback if I can pull it off.”
