Lindsey Vonn admits the ‘dark’ and ‘unrelenting’ mental battle of her Winter Olympics leg break has only just begun.
The American skiing icon, 41, suffered the gruesome injury in the women’s downhill final at the Milan-Cortina Games earlier this month, before she was quickly airlifted to a local hospital.
Amid fears she could lose her leg, Vonn underwent four procedures in Italy before she was able to head back home to the US, where she also had a fifth surgery upon return.
Though despite already completing five operations, and leaving hospital for good earlier this week, she says the psychological challenge of rehabilitation is now underway.
‘Today was a hard day… my physical battle began the second I got hurt but the mental battle started today,’ Vonn wrote on X Tuesday. ‘It hit me like a ton of bricks.
‘It’s a battle I’m used to because I’ve done it so many times. I have always learned from every injury. Each one has made me a better and stronger person in different ways… but the battle of the mind can be dark and hard and unrelenting.
Lindsey Vonn admits the ‘dark’ and ‘unrelenting’ mental battle of her leg break has begun
Vonn underwent five surgeries after suffering the gruesome injury at the Winter Olympics
‘Someone I care about said I am a “master at the psychological game of life…”
‘I don’t know if that’s true…. I do know hard days are coming but I will find a way back to the top of the mountain of life.’
In a lengthy post to Instagram on Monday morning, the legendary skier revealed the devastating extent of her injuries and that doctors saved her from losing her leg after the horror crash.
Vonn said she is in a wheelchair and will be for the foreseeable future. She fought back tears at times in a video where she explained how much pain she has already had to overcome.
‘I had a complex tibia fracture, I also fractured my fibula head and the reason it was so complex was because I had compartment syndrome,’ she explained. ‘Compartment syndrome is when you have so much trauma to one area that there is too much blood and it gets stuck. It basically crushes everything – muscles, nerves, tendons, it dies.
‘Dr Tom Hackett saved my leg from being amputated. He did what is called a fasciotomy, he cut open both sides of my leg and let it breathe and he saved me.
‘It will take around a year for all of the bones to heal and then I will decide if I want to take out all the metal or not, and then go back into surgery and finally fix my ACL. Life is life, we have to take the punches as they come.’
Vonn controversially opted to compete at the Olympics with a torn ACL after sustaining the injury in the days leading up to the Games, something she said was actually a good thing.
The 41-year-old crashed in the women’s downhill final before being airlifted to hospital in Italy
After leaving hospital, Vonn says she is immobile in a wheelchair while her leg begins to heal
‘If I hadn’t torn my ACL, which I would have done anyways in this crash, Doctor Tom Hackett wouldn’t have been there,’ she explained. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to save my leg.
‘He saved my leg from being amputated. I always talk about everything happening for a reason… I feel very lucky and grateful for him, for this six-hour surgery.’
Vonn’s race-torn body already contained titanium implants after she underwent a reconstruction in her right knee back in 2024.
She launched her second career comeback shortly after the reconstruction, ending a five-year retirement, which reaped its reward in the form of victory at the 2025-2026 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in December.
Vonn looked to add to that win with a gold at the Winter Olympics but disaster struck just one week before the Games began when she tore her ACL in a crash at Crans-Montana in Switzerland.
Despite clear medical concerns, Vonn attempted to compete on the torn ligament but crashed just 13 seconds into her downhill final run, suffering the leg break as a result.