{"id":467576,"date":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467576\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","slug":"winter-olympics-2026-lindsey-vonn-breaks-her-leg-breezy-johnson-breaks-her-gold-medal-quick-hits-from-day-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467576\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Olympics 2026: Lindsey Vonn breaks her leg, Breezy Johnson breaks her gold medal \u2014 quick hits from day two"},"content":{"rendered":"

US great Lindsey Vonn breaks her leg, and her compatriot breaks her gold medal as Tess Coady sneaks through to the final after a nervous wait on the bubble.<\/p>\n

Read more about the Winter Olympics:<\/p>\n

Here are the quick hits from the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n

1. Vonn airlifted out\"An<\/p>\n

Lindsey Vonn was taken to hospital via helicopter after her big crash in the women’s downhill at Cortina. (AP: Jacquelyn Martin)<\/p>\n

US skiing superstar Lindsey Vonn was already making headlines this Olympic Games for deciding to compete despite having a completely torn ACL.<\/p>\n

All eyes were on the 41-year-old as she went to make her run in the women’s downhill racing, 24 years after her debut in 2002.<\/p>\n

But just 12 seconds in, she had an awful crash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Lindsey Vonn was airlifted off the downhill track after a horrible crash. (Getty Images: PA Images\/Andrew Milligan)<\/p>\n

It was a sight no-one wanted to see, and an eerie silence took hold of Cortina d’Ampezzo. She lay on the track for about 10 minutes while being seen by medics until a helicopter came to take her away.<\/p>\n

An official statement from Team USA said Vonn was “in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians”, undergoing surgery to stabilise a broken left leg.<\/p>\n

\"AMerican<\/p>\n

Fans were stunned into silence when Lindsey Vonn crashed 12 seconds in to her downhill racing run. (Getty Images: Mattia Ozbot)<\/p>\n

2. ‘Tom Daley, I broke my medal for you’<\/p>\n

There is one thing, more than anything else, you would hope not to do to your gleaming, newly acquired gold medal.<\/p>\n

And that one thing is break it.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Breezy Johnson, who topped the podium in the women’s downhill skiing on day two, that’s exactly what she did.<\/p>\n

Johnson is an avid knitter, and when a BBC reporter told her she would receive a message from British diving superstar and fellow knitter Tom Daley, she could hardly contain her excitement.<\/p>\n

Bouncing up and down, the medal snapped from its lanyard and fell to the floor.<\/p>\n

“Tom Daley, I broke my medal for you,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Johnson later put out a call on Instagram to any makers on Etsy for a custom carrying case, seeing as she could no longer wear it around her neck.<\/p>\n

\"Breezy<\/p>\n

Breezy Johnson needs a new way to carry her Olympic gold. (Instagram: breezyjohnsonski)<\/p>\n

3. Coady’s nervous wait<\/p>\n

Australian Tess Coady was always in a tricky spot in the women’s snowboard big air qualification.<\/p>\n

The 2022 slopestyle bronze medallist was the first rider, meaning she had to watch 28 other women try to better her score, with only the top 12 going through to the final.<\/p>\n

Only the top two scores from the three qualifying runs counted, and Coady added a 75 with her switch backside 900 to a strong 78.50 from her first run, leaving her with a solid but surmountable total of 153.50, and a long wait ahead of her.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A bronze medallist in Beijing, Tess Coady only just scraped through to the final of the women’s big air. (Getty Images: Michael Reaves)<\/p>\n

By the time China’s Zhang Xiaonan pipped her by a point, Coady was officially bumped down to 12th spot and sitting on the bubble with 11 riders still to come.<\/p>\n

Thankfully for the 25-year-old, it was the last time her score was bettered, as she managed to progress to the Olympic final for the second straight time, accompanying compatriot Meila Stalker.<\/p>\n

The cameras found a gleeful Coady in the holding pen, and she wiped a bit of faux sweat off her brow as attention turned to the final on Tuesday at 5:30am AEDT.<\/p>\n

4. Karl goes topless<\/p>\n

It was a celebration to match the most epic of parallel giant slalom victories.<\/p>\n

Trailing for much of the men’s final, 40-year-old Benjamin Karl stormed home to defend his gold medal from Beijing and set in motion one of the Winter Olympics’ more memorable celebration sequences.<\/p>\n

The roaring veteran wasted no time in removing his top, flexing his muscles and holding the pose with authority.<\/p>\n

It was quite the performance, even before taking into account the sub-zero Italian temperatures he had exposed himself to.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Benjamin Karl roared after removing his top in celebration of his gold medal. (Getty Images: David Ramos)<\/p>\n

And he wasn’t done there.<\/p>\n

The now two-time Olympic champion capped off the display by flinging himself towards the ground, where he lay motionless and face down in the snow.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Benjamin Karl produced a celebration to remember after defending his gold medal. (Getty Images: Hannah Peters)<\/p>\n

5. How to watch the Super Bowl in Italy<\/p>\n

Whether it be European football, cricket in India or the Winter Olympics, Australian sport fans are well-accustomed to an interrupted sleep schedule.<\/p>\n

But for American bobsleigh athletes Joshua Williamson and Boone Niederhofer, it seems to be something of a novel idea.<\/p>\n

\"Team<\/p>\n

The bobsleigh program gets underway Thursday night AEDT. (Getty Images: Maddie Meyer)<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Olympic village in Cortina, the pair explained how they planned to watch this morning’s Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, beginning at 12:30am in Italy.<\/p>\n

“My plan is to wake up and watch maybe the second half or the fourth quarter to make sure I’m still doing my job here,” Williamson said.<\/p>\n

“I’ll probably just watch it on my phone in bed, throw it on and make sure I can catch some of it.”<\/p>\n

Niederhofer, who played college football for Texas A&M before becoming an Olympian, said he would be taking a similarly pragmatic approach.<\/p>\n

\"Boone<\/p>\n

Boone Niederhofer played college football as a receiver for Texas A&M from 2014 to 2016. (Getty Images: Thomas B. Shea)<\/p>\n

“We were talking about it. I think we’re going to stay up and watch kick-off and then take a two-hour nap, wake up and watch the fourth quarter,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m okay forfeiting the half-time show.”<\/p>\n

ABC Sport will live blog Super Bowl LX, which gets underway at the much more reasonable time of 10:30am AEDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US great Lindsey Vonn breaks her leg, and her compatriot breaks her gold medal as Tess Coady sneaks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,239096,117099,1154,184337,4892,190437,238351,142583,73708,588,85,206605,239095,31080],"class_list":["post-467576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-benjamin-karl","tag-cortina-dampezzo","tag-crash","tag-day-two","tag-helicopter","tag-lindsay-vonn","tag-lindsey-vonn","tag-milano-cortina","tag-quick-hits","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tess-coady","tag-tom-daley","tag-winter-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}