That she was even racing at all was incredible given that she sustained a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament just a week before the Games.<\/p>\n
One of the most recognisable female faces in global sport, Vonn underwent four operations in Italy before heading back to the United States, where she had her left leg pinned back together.<\/p>\n
Another comeback looks unlikely for the 41-year-old.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Vonn had three surgeries after her massive crash. Photo \/ Instagram<\/p>\n
Johannes Klaebo<\/p>\n
Six races. Six golds. Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Klaebo achieved a historic Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
His six golds in Tesero took his Olympic tally to 11 and the 29-year-old became the first athlete in history to win all six cross-country skiing races at one Games.<\/p>\n
Klaebo joined two other athletes to have won all of their events at a single Winter Olympics \u2013 US speed skater Eric Heiden, who took five golds at the 1980 Lake Placid Games, and Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, who won four in Salt Lake City in 2002.<\/p>\n
The only athlete in Winter or Summer Games history with more Olympic titles than Klaebo is American swimmer Michael Phelps, who won 23 golds.<\/p>\n
Ilia Malinin<\/p>\n
Malinin was hot favourite to take gold in the men\u2019s individual event after guiding the United States to a second consecutive team gold.<\/p>\n
Everything was on track after the \u201cQuad God\u201d took a five-point lead into the men\u2019s free skate following the short programme, but disaster struck and he tumbled to a humiliating eighth spot.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old, who has revolutionised and dominated the sport, said his failure was \u201cdefinitely mental\u201d after he fell twice in a surprisingly awkward effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the world\u2019s biggest stage, those who appear the strongest may still be fighting invisible battles on the inside,\u201d said the two-time world champion, who had been unbeaten for more than two years.<\/p>\n
Alysa Liu<\/p>\n
Liu ended America\u2019s 24-year wait for a women\u2019s individual skating gold with a dynamic free skate featuring seven triples.<\/p>\n
After finishing sixth at the Beijing Games four years ago as a 16-year-old, Liu took a two-year break from the sport before returning to claim the world title last year.<\/p>\n
Liu, like Malinin, also won the team title.<\/p>\n
Alysa Liu on the ice at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Vladyslav Heraskevych<\/p>\n
Skeleton racer Heraskevych refused to ditch a helmet depicting pictures of Ukrainian sportsmen and women killed since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
He was disqualified, bringing the International Olympic Committee into conflict with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n
Gestures of a political nature during competition are forbidden under the Olympic charter, the IOC arguing that Heraskevych had failed \u201cto adhere to the IOC athlete expression guidelines\u201d.<\/p>\n
Zelensky said the IOC\u2019s decision, made after president Kirsty Coventry travelled to a face-to-face discussion with the racer, played \u201cinto the hands of aggressors\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2013 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Swiss men\u2019s team were the stand-out outfit in northern Italy, winning four of the five golds on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25629,163792,95,3549,39726,9058,4241,305,31144,12022,116293,163793,20562,152473,9062,111,139,69,5106,91131,72231,4739,163794,48432,26655,213,90578,104651,154766,14905,23644],"class_list":{"0":"post-297244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alpine","9":"tag-alysa","10":"tag-and","11":"tag-crash","12":"tag-domination","13":"tag-figure","14":"tag-gold","15":"tag-have","16":"tag-horrific","17":"tag-host","18":"tag-lindsey","19":"tag-lius","20":"tag-mens","21":"tag-milancortina","22":"tag-moments","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-olympics","27":"tag-provided","28":"tag-shocks","29":"tag-six","30":"tag-skating","31":"tag-skiing","32":"tag-sparkling","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-swiss","35":"tag-unforgettable","36":"tag-vonns","37":"tag-whether","38":"tag-winter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297244","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=297244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}