Lindsey Vonn reflected on a difficult day mentally as she continues to recover from a complex leg fracture suffered during her crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics and required multiple surgeries.
The U.S. skiing star explained that she’s “in a battle of the mind” that’s “dark and hard and unrelenting” in an X post Tuesday.
“Today was a hard day… my physical battle began the second I got hurt but the mental battle started today. It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Vonn, 41, wrote. “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.
“Someone I care about said I am 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.”
Taking to her Instagram, Vonn shared a photo of her dog while laying in bed.
“Why are you crying Mom?” she wrote. “It was just a hard day…”
It came after she revealed in a Monday Instagram post that her left leg almost needed to be amputated after she suffered a complex tibia fracture in a major crash during her downhill run at the Winter Olympics.
Vonn had already been skiing on a torn ACL she suffered at a World Cup race in Switzerland on Jan. 30.
On Monday, Vonn shared that her left leg almost needed to be amputated after she suffered a complex tibia fracture in a crash during her downhill run at the Milan Cortina Olympics.
“Dr. Tom Hackett saved my leg. He saved my leg from being amputated,” she said in the video. “He did what’s called a fasciotomy, where he cut open both sides of my leg and kind of filleted it open… let it breath and, um, he saved me.”
Vonn returned home to the United States after spending nearly two weeks in a Milan hospital while immobile.
In her video, Vonn explained that she also broke her right ankle in the crash, is currently in a wheelchair and will need to be on crutches for two months when she’s out of the wheelchair.
“Now I will focus on rehab and progressing from a wheelchair to crutches in a few weeks,” she captioned her post. “It will take around a year for all of the bones to heal and then I will decide if I want to take out all the metal or not, and then go back into surgery and finally fix my ACL.
“It will be a long road but I’ll get there. At least I’m out of the hospital 🙌🏻💪🏻.”