CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Lindsey Vonn is feeling well enough to text with friends.
Italian skiing star Sofia Goggia, one of Vonn’s closest friends, said Tuesday, Feb. 10, that she and Vonn had texted a day earlier.
‘I’m really sorry for her. She didn’t deserve this,’ Goggia said after crashing in the downhill portion of the team combined event. Goggia won bronze in the individual downhill two days prior and lit the cauldron in Cortina during the opening ceremony.
Vonn suffered a complex tibial fracture in a crash during the Olympic downhill Sunday, Feb. 8, and she said it will require multiple surgeries. She had surgery the day of the crash at Ca’Foncello Hospital in Terviso, and Goggia said Vonn has since undergone a second operation.
‘I’m really sorry for her. I feel the suffering that she has inside of herself,’ said Goggia, who nearly missed the 2022 Olympics after crashing and injuring her knee about three weeks before Beijing.
Vonn hooked the fourth gate with her arm in the downhill, which spun her around and flung her into the hard, packed snow. She tumbled end over end several times before coming to a stop.
Vonn was treated on the hill for roughly 13 minutes before being loaded into a helicopter and, five minutes later, airlifted to a local hospital. After an assessment there, she was transferred to Ca’Foncello Hospital and was in stable condition as of Monday night.
Vonn was skiing on a torn ACL in her left knee, but she emphasized that that wasn’t the reason for her crash.
‘In downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches. I was simply 5 inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash,” Vonn wrote in an Instagram post. “My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever.”