She was taken to Treviso\u2019s Ca\u2019 Foncello hospital which later revealed that Vonn \u201cunderwent orthopaedic surgery to stabilise a fracture of the left leg\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson, who was already in the traditional leader\u2019s chair after her aggressive run down the slope, said that she felt \u201cheartache\u201d at Vonn\u2019s crash, which completely changed the complexion of the race.<\/p>\n
Already the reigning world downhill champion, Johnson finished in front of Germany\u2019s Emma Aicher by just 0.04s with Italy\u2019s speed specialist Sofia Goggia taking bronze in front of home fans.<\/p>\n
Goggia had a long wait for her run as she was two down the starting list from Vonn and she was hampered by the blazing sunshine which softened the previously firm snow on her favourite piste.<\/p>\n
But Johnson\u2019s win was overshadowed by one of world sport\u2019s most recognisable faces likely ending her Olympic career in tragic fashion.<\/p>\n
Johan Eliasch, the president of the International Ski Federation (FIS) who was watching the race in Cortina, said Vonn\u2019s crash was \u201ctragic, but it\u2019s ski racing I\u2019m afraid\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I can only say thank you for what she has done for our sport because this race has been the talk of the Games and it\u2019s put our sport in the best possible light,\u201d added Eliasch.<\/p>\n
Kirsty Coventry, the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said in a message to Vonn that \u201cwe\u2019re all thinking of you\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are an incredible inspiration, and will always be an Olympic champion,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Vonn had insisted that she could not only compete but win against the world\u2019s best women skiers, some of whom like Aicher are nearly half her age.<\/p>\n
Vonn said before the Games that she was planning on also competing in the team combined event on Tuesday and the super-G two days later.<\/p>\n
But that now looks unlikely, a potential long lay-off perhaps heralding the end of her comeback to skiing in her early 40s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat definitely was the last thing we wanted to see,\u201d Vonn\u2019s sister Karin Kildow said to US broadcaster NBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe always goes 110 per cent, there\u2019s never anything less, so I know she put her whole heart into it and sometimes things happen. It\u2019s a very dangerous sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacqueline Wiles, the American who finished fourth, just 0.27sec outside the medals, said watching Vonn had been \u201cpretty awful\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo watch someone that you care about so much, it really sucks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart kind of just broke for her in that moment. But that\u2019s the inherent risk of this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vonn retired in 2019 but returned to competition in November 2024 following surgery to partially replace her right knee to end persistent pain and had been in great form before her previous crash in Crans Montana.<\/p>\n
She had finished on the podium in every previous World Cup downhill race this season, including two victories in St. Moritz and Zauchensee, and claimed two more top-three finishes in the super-G.<\/p>\n
But retirement looms for Vonn following a disastrous end to one of the biggest stories of the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She was taken to Treviso\u2019s Ca\u2019 Foncello hospital which later revealed that Vonn \u201cunderwent orthopaedic surgery to stabilise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,74,8239,806,55513,13912,2562,15979,3588,33236,92472,299,8532,4241,8274,116293,111,139,69,25292,5106,5976,213,97592,30943,154766,23644,102],"class_list":["post-274264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-2246","tag-after","tag-american","tag-as","tag-breezy","tag-broken","tag-claims","tag-crashed","tag-cut","tag-downhill","tag-dramatically","tag-dream","tag-ended","tag-gold","tag-johnson","tag-lindsey","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-olympic","tag-olympics","tag-short","tag-sports","tag-teammate","tag-todays","tag-vonns","tag-winter","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}