Gold-medal skier Lindsey Vonn was supposed to be one of the biggest stories of the 2026 Winter Olympics. And if she can overcome what just happened, it will be the comeback of all comebacks.
The hopes of the 41-year-old Alpine racer were almost shattered Friday when she lost control during a World Cup run in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, crashing into the safety barrier and injuring her left knee just seven days before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.
She had to be airlifted off the course, shocking onlookers.
“This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics,” Vonn wrote on Instagram Friday.
Indeed, it would be a heartbreaking outcome for the elite athlete, who has battled her way back from a right-knee replacement and a self-imposed 2019 retirement.
“But,” Vonn added on Instagram, “if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback.”
Insiders say she is propelled by an almost superhuman drive.
“Based on reports we’re hearing, we think she’s going to compete,” one source from NBC, which is airing the games, told The Post after the crash. “Lindsay is so accomplished, obviously she’s a star … she’s been around for 24 years and she’s missed Olympics before, but we would not put anything past her.”
Vonn has been poised to make history as the oldest woman to ever compete in alpine racing in Winter Olympics history. The women’s downhill race — which she is set to participate in — is scheduled for February 9, two days after the opening ceremony.
“If anyone can do this, it’s you,” her teammate Mikayla Shiffrin posted on Instagram, as Vonn was also supported online by Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Jade Carey, track star Allyson Felix and tennis icon Billie Jean King.
“Lindsey’s telling everyone ‘Stay strong, don’t be a Debbie Downer” about her crash, a friend told The Post. “She needs everyone to give her positive energy to get through this — that’s the number-one message to her friends and family.
“Lindsey wants us to be strong, she said ‘don’t write ‘I’m sorry’, give me good energy, please be positive.
“She’s leading the charge: Everyone has to get on board with helping her find the will to get her through.”
Vonn plans to “make it work,” the friend added — saying the skier is determined right now to grit her teeth and work through the pain.
“Any treatment that she needs, she’ll likely have after the Olympics.”
After all, skiing has been her whole life.
The golden girl of the slopes has been on skis since she was just two years old, growing up in Buck Hill, Minnesota. Her dad, Alan Kildow, was an accomplished competitive skier and a junior national champion.
When Vonn was 12, she moved with her mom and siblings to Vail, Colorado, to train — and was just 17 when she made her Olympic debut at the 2002 games in Salt Lake City, Utah.
She has a record 82 World Cup victories, more than any other female skier in history, and four World Cup overall championships. Vonn is one of only seven women to have won World Cup races in all five events of Alpine skiing: downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom and super combined.
Her 2010 Olympic gold medal in the downhill was the first for an American woman.
Throughout her career, Vonn has suffered torn ligaments, broken bones and horrific crashes — one of which resulted in a knee injury that kept her out of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and another in the super G during the 2013 world championships in Austria that ended her season. Each time, Vonn has said, she was inspired to ski again by her mom, Linda Kohn, who suffered a stroke while 38 weeks pregnant with her.
Vonn was born by emergency C-section and her mom spent days in a coma. When Linda awoke, she had no memory she had given birth.
Despite being given a 50-50 chance of survival, Kohn went on to become a lawyer and have four more children.
In her 2022 memoir, “Rise, My Story,” Vonn said her mom would drive from Minnesota to Colorado — 18 hours each way — so she could ski.
“She couldn’t come all the way back from her stroke, but she always had a positive outlook,” Vonn wrote. “I’d think, if all I need to do is work hard to get back from this, well, she didn’t have that luxury. That shaped a lot of my outlook, trying to seize every opportunity.”
But in 2019, Vonn was felled by significant damage to her right knee and announced her retirement — saying she was “broken beyond repair … “My body is screaming at me to STOP and it’s time for me to listen.”
It meant that she would not accomplish her dream of besting the record of 86 World Cup wins set by a man, Swede Ingemar Stenmark.
“Honestly, retiring isn’t what upsets me. Retiring without reaching my goal is what will stay with me forever,” Vonn said at the time.
Upon retiring, she wrote in her book that she went through “all the stages of grief … It was like part of me died. I needed to fully mourn the chapter that was closing before I could embrace whatever came next.”
She set up Aprés Productions, a TV and film development company which released the documentary “Picabo” — about 1990s Alpine skiing icon Picabo Street, one of Vonn’s idols and mentors — last year.
She also created Vonn, a line of skiwear and goggles, and is an official ambassador for a clothing collection by wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who has said that Vonn was the only person who could keep up with him in the gym.
But, insiders say, Vonn is an adrenaline junkie who never let go of her competitive mindset.
“I built an amazing life and was really happy in retirement,” she told People earlier this month. “But I didn’t finish my career the way I wanted to. I was limping away when I wanted to finish strong.”
In 2024, she underwent a specialty partial knee replacement that, thanks to 3D modeling and robotic technology, replaced her cartilage loss with titanium that preserved her existing ligaments — and allowed her to ski again.
“My body was so different,” she told People. “I didn’t have any pain at all; my knee didn’t swell. I felt like I could do anything. The thought of ski racing again, something I loved to do so much, but without pain, was really exciting.”
The Winter Olympics in Cortina was too big of a lure to resist, especially as it’s in Cortina.
That’s where Vonn got her first podium, placing third at the 2004 World Cup as both her divorced parents watched.
“It’s one of the few races in my whole career that both of my parents were at,” Vonn has said, “so it’s a very special place for me.”
She’ll certainly have her mother on her mind, as Linda died in 2022 after a battle with ALS.
And Vonn has said there will be one big change going into the Winter Games.
“I have never been single going into any Olympics in my life,” Vonn told SELF.com. “So I’m excited to try that out. It’s been really nice to just be focused on myself.”
Indeed, Vonn has become as famous for her love life as her prowess on the mountain. She wed fellow skier Thomas Vonn in 2007 before they split in 2013, and went on to romance golfer Tiger Woods.
The couple split in 2015 after nearly three years together amid reports he was involved with other women.
“I loved Tiger, and I had an amazing three years with him,” she told the New York Times — while also admitting, “jumping into a relationship right away after getting a divorce was probably not the smartest move on my part.”
Vonn was engaged to Devils hockey player PK Subban before they broke up in 2020, then dated Spanish entrepreneur and actor Diego Osorio for nearly four years until their split last year.
In December, Vonn won a World Cup downhill race in St. Moritz, marking a triumphant return and cheered on by her dad. “He cried so hard, I’ve never heard that in my life,” she said.
Vonn herself hopes to shed some tears of joy. But right now, as she awaits her fate, she won’t be crying tears of fear.
“She’s unusual,” the friend said. “Sports has been ingrained in her from such a young age … how do you even get to stop? She doesn’t want to. That’s Lindsey’s story.”
Additional reporting. by Megan Palin