“I feel good and am working on my fitness before undergoing surgery in November”: Vonn announces ACL operation

Everything was turned upside down in an instant—or rather, in just over a week, given that Lindsey Vonn had arrived at Crans-Montana for the final downhill before the Olympic Games in “her” Cortina as the undisputed leader of the premier discipline in the World Cup. In those complicated conditions on Mont Lachaux, she ended up in the safety nets and tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, as was sensationally announced at a press conference on 3 February.

Five days before the race she had been waiting for ever since her “comeback” in 2024, only she believed it was possible to compete for the title, and the training runs had given her the confidence she was looking for. Then, that Sunday morning on 8 February, on the Olympia delle Tofane, turned into a nightmare for Lindsey the athlete and the woman, with the terrifying scream we all heard as we watched her lying on the ground with the same left leg shattered.

Almost seven months have passed and LV84 can finally say that she is feeling well—and prove it by engaging in substantial physical activity and showing up in shape at the many events in which she has taken part. The latest was last weekend in Newport, on the grass tennis courts for the launch of the US Open, which began yesterday in Flushing Meadows, as part of the International Tennis Hall of Fame event.

On “TNT Sports”, the Minnesota champion described how she is experiencing this stage of her recovery and what lies ahead, revealing that the next—and probably final—operation is scheduled for November, following the series of procedures at Treviso hospital during the dramatic hours after the accident in Cortina, as well as those she underwent back home. In just over two months, if everything goes according to plan, LV84 will undergo surgery on the ACL in her left knee, the one she tore at Crans-Montana. “I feel good, I’m improving, and I’m working on my fitness because I will have to undergo surgery again,” Vonn said. “Once they have reconstructed my anterior cruciate ligament, I will face another long journey, and I know I still have a long way to go because it will take around nine months before I fully recover.

As a result, I really can’t think any further ahead, and I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m grateful for the position I’ve reached now,” Lindsey stressed, referring to the possibility—distant but not ruled out—of attempting another comeback in the winter of 2027/28.

Returning to that fateful day in Cortina, the risk of amputation was averted only after the tremendous work carried out by the medical team at Ca’ Foncello Hospital in Treviso. “It was a very different injury, because of its severity and because I knew I could have lost my leg,” admitted the four-time overall World Cup winner and Olympic gold medallist in Vancouver in 2010. “Usually, I can tolerate a great deal of pain, but in that case it was truly extreme.

I had never experienced anything like it.”