Participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina in these conditions is already an achievement. Except that Lindsey Vonn didn’t just come to participate. She came to achieve a result.
Victim of a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee eight days ago, the 41-year-old American set the third time this Saturday in the last training session before tomorrow’s downhill. She was only beaten by her compatriot Breezy Johnson by 37 hundredths, and by 16 hundredths by the German Kira Weidle-Wikelmann.
“She’s ready” according to her trainer
If, like the day before, the American star did not wish to answer the journalists’ questions, his trainer Axel Lund Svindal spoke at length, judging the session “very good”.
“She knows she’s going to have to push harder tomorrow (Sunday from 11:30 a.m.), because the rest of the girls will do it. And it’s the Olympic downhill, you’re not going to come away with a medal without going all out. But I think she is ready for that,” commented the former Norwegian skier.
A little scare
While Breezy Johnson had just said that his heart had “stopped” for a while while watching his compatriot’s descent, Svindal still suffered a fright, too, when the “Speed Queen” collapsed on his other knee, the right – which is held thanks to a titanium prosthesis -, upon landing a jump. “But it was the only moment” of concern, he assured.
At 41, after almost six years off and with a knee injury, the American superstar remains one of the contenders for the Olympic podium, or even victory.
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