Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn breaks in the middle of the downhill final at the Milano Cortina Games | Sports

Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn, star of the Winter Games being held these days in Milano Cortina, broke down in the downhill final when she was aiming for a medal. The athlete, Princess of Asturias Sports Award winner in 2019, has left the courts in silence when everyone was waiting for her great return. She leaves the Alps injured after a rough descent.

Lindsey Vonn looked out onto the vertiginous Tofane slope, the epitome of danger and alpine beauty where skis navigate slopes of up to 65% and soar, uncontrollably, up to 140 kilometers per hour, and the Cortina d’Ampezzo station holds its breath. It is not just any place for the American, who at 41 years old, with one knee made of titanium and the other with recently destroyed ligaments, has won twelve World Cup events there, more than any other athlete in history, man or woman.

She smiled there for the first time in 2004, when some of her current competitors were not yet born, after achieving her first World Cup podium at the age of 19. There she tested her legs, and especially her head, last Friday, where, cautious after the abrupt fall in Cras Montana (Switzerland), her first major setback after returning to the elite in 2024, she finished just over a second and a half off the best time in the first training session. On Saturday, with her feelings already in tune, and her fourth Olympic medal in her sights, the Minnesotan set the third fastest time, just three tenths behind her compatriot Breezy Johnson.

A day later, everyone encourages and cheers the downhill legend, who launches himself down the mountain and bends his injured knees to climb and pursue a dream that even though he was injured, he did not want to give up. However, the cold water comes in the second corner, when the American’s right arm brushes against the entrance door to the Pomedes diagonal, a stretch that gives its name to one of the busiest refuges in the Dolomites, and physics takes care of doing the rest. Vonna ended up rolling in the snow and ended up in a terrible position, his skis stuck and his knees tense. The final is over for her. And the Olympic dream.