Can Lindsey Vonn Race the Olympics with a Torn ACL? An Expert Weighs In.

As if the Lindsey Vonn comeback couldn’t get any more dramatic.

Unless you’ve been hibernating in a cave, you may have read that Vonn, the comeback queen of American ski racing, is enduring a rollercoaster ride in the final days before the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

After dominating the Downhill World Cup in November and December, Vonn, 41, crashed hard on January 30 during a warmup run ahead of the Crans-Montana World Cup. As far as ski racing crashes look, this one appeared bad—Vonn had to be airlifted from the slope.

A few days later, she announced the extent of the damage: a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), bone bruising, and damage to her meniscus. Despite these wounds, Vonn told reporters that she is powering ahead toward the women’s Olympic Downhill, which will be held on Sunday, February 8.

“Every day my knee’s gotten better,” Vonn told The Associated Press on February 3. “And every day we’re discussing with a full medical team, doctors, physios, everyone, to make sure we’re doing everything to make sure I am making smart and safe decisions.”

What a Doctor Says About Lindsey Vonn’s Torn ACL

Since then, the Internet has been abuzz with experts weighing in on Vonn’s decision to race, despite her injured knee. The ACL connects your thigh bone (femur) to your shin bone (tibia), and provides stability to your leg when your knee is bent. Sounds pretty important, right?

Well, it turns out that other elite skiers have competed despite having torn the ligament. Three weeks after tearing her ACL, Italian downhiller Sofia Goggia won a World Cup race in 2022. Vonn even raced in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi with an ACL tear.

I recently spoke to Dr. Kevin Stone, an orthopedic surgeon in California and ACL expert, who was also the U.S. Ski Team’s doctor from 1988 until 2002. Dr. Stone told me an ACL tear during skiing is usually traumatic and leaves an athlete hobbled and with agonizing pain.

“What typically happens when you rupture the ACL skiing is you jam the tibia forward into the femur, the tibia bruises the bone and tears the stabilizing meniscus cartilage,” he said. “That combo leads to swelling and pain and instability right away.”

Yeah—not exactly the condition you’d want to be in when hurtling down an icy ski slope at 70 miles per hour.

When I brought up the fact that other ski racers have competed with a torn ACL, Dr. Stone laughed and reminded me that “not every ACL tear is the same.”

“When you hear about athletes who skied well on their ACL, it’s often because they tore it a while ago and then learned to accommodate skiing without it,” he said. “But yes, there are pro athletes who are able to accommodate a somewhat unstable knee and still perform.”

Dr. Stone characterized these patients as having a “chronic” ACL tear—it’s a long-lasting injury that is sometimes not fixed. Vonn’s tear is acute—she is only a few days removed from the crash.

I’m simplifying Dr. Stone’s analysis of Vonn’s injury here: the timing of it totally sucks. Had she ruptured the ACL several weeks ago, her body and brain would have time to heal and adjust to the injury. But Vonn only has a few days until go-time.

Still, Vonn has sounded confident in her decision to go forward. So has her coach, Chris Knight.

“I’m pretty confident that she can still pull off this dream,” Knight told The Associated Press on February 4. “I’ve got no doubts in my mind that this is going to be OK.”

Dr. Stone told me that Vonn, Knight, and the rest of the world will find out whether or not she can compete in Cortina at the exact same time. Her first training descent on the Cortina Downhill course will be the make-or-break point, Dr. Stone said.

“If she can do a training run, then the likelihood that her injuries are too severe to compete is low,” he said.

Vonn was slated to complete a practice run on the Cortina course on Thursday, February 5. But bad weather and heavy snow have now pushed the practice run back to Friday, February 6.

Thus, American ski racing fans—and more than a few orthopedic surgeons—will be watching Vonn’s run while crossing their fingers, knocking on wood, and rubbing lucky rabbits’ feet during the descent. Dr. Stone told me he will be one of them.

“We may get our answer the first time she tries to arc a turn, and definitely the first time she goes off a jump,” Dr. Stone said. “We’re all going to be holding our breath.”

I know I will be.