By ANDREW DAMPF and PAT GRAHAM<\/p>\n
CORTINA D\u2019AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) \u2014 Lindsey Vonn\u2019s<\/a> defiant bid to win the Winter Olympic downhill<\/a> at the age of 41, on a rebuilt right knee and a badly injured left knee, ended Sunday in a frightening crash<\/a> that left her with a broken leg and saw her taken to safety by a rescue helicopter for the second time in nine days<\/a>. <\/p>\n Vonn lost control within moments of leaving the start house, clipping a gate with her right shoulder and pinwheeling down the slope before ending up awkwardly on her back, her skis crisscrossed below her and her screams ringing out soon after medical personnel arrived. She was treated for long, anguished minutes as a hush fell over the crowd waiting far below at the finish line.<\/p>\n She was strapped to a gurney and flown away, possibly ending the skier\u2019s storied career. She was taken to a clinic in Cortina, then transferred to a larger hospital in Treviso, a two-hour drive to the south. <\/p>\n She was being \u201ctreated by a multidisciplinary team\u201d and \u201cunderwent an orthopedic operation to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg,\u201d the Ca\u2019 Foncello hospital said in a statement. The U.S. Ski Team said Vonn was \u201cin stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019ll be OK, but it\u2019s going to be a bit of a process,\u201d said Anouk Patty, chief of sport for U.S. Ski and Snowboard. \u201cThis sport\u2019s brutal and people need to remember when they\u2019re watching (that) these athletes are throwing themselves down a mountain and going really, really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Breezy Johnson, Vonn\u2019s teammate,<\/a> became only the second American woman to win the Olympic downhill after Vonn did it 16 years ago. The 30-year-old Johnson held off Emma Aicher of Germany and Italy\u2019s Sofia Goggia on a bittersweet day for the team.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t claim to know what she\u2019s going through, but I do know what it is to be here, to be fighting for the Olympics, and to have this course burn you and to watch those dreams die,\u201d said Johnson, whose injury in Cortina in 2022 ruined her hopes of skiing in the Beijing Olympics. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine the pain that she\u2019s going through and it\u2019s not the physical pain \u2014 we can deal with physical pain \u2014 but the emotional pain is something else.\u201d<\/p>\n Vonn had family in the stands, including her father, Alan Kildow, who stared down at the ground while his daughter was being treated after just 13 seconds on the course where she holds a record 12 World Cup titles. Others in the crowd, including rapper Snoop Dogg, watched quietly as the star skier was finally taken off the course. Fellow American star Mikaela Shiffrin posted a broken heart emoji on social media.<\/p>\n Vonn\u2019s crash was \u201ctragic, but it\u2019s ski racing,\u201d said Johan Eliasch, president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. <\/p>\n \u201cI can only say thank you for what she has done for our sport,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause this race has been the talk of the Games and it\u2019s put our sport in the best possible light.\u201d<\/p>\n All eyes had been on Vonn, the feel-good story heading into the Olympics.<\/a> She returned to elite ski racing last season after nearly six years, a remarkable decision given her age but she also had a partial titanium knee replacement<\/a> in her right knee, too. Many wondered how she would fare as she sought a gold medal to join the one she won in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games.<\/p>\n The four-time overall World Cup champion stunned everyone by being a contender almost immediately. She came to the Olympics as the leader in the World Cup downhill standings and was a gold-medal favorite before her crash in Switzerland nine days ago, when she suffered her latest knee injury. In addition to a ruptured ACL, she also had a bone bruise and meniscus damage.<\/p>\n Still, no one counted her out even then. In truth, she has skied through injuries for three decades<\/a> at the top of the sport. In 2006, ahead of the Turin Olympics, Vonn took a bad fall during downhill training and went to the hospital. She competed less than 48 hours later, racing in all four events she\u2019d planned, with a top result of seventh in the super-G. <\/p>\n