"Yesterday my Olympic dream didn't end the way I had dreamed. It wasn't a fairytale ending, it was just life," Lindsey Vonn begins in a post.
It was the moment that made the winter sports world pause. Superstar Lindsey Vonn was ready to start Sunday's downhill race - despite having suffered a cruciate ligament injury just over a week earlier.
After about ten seconds, it all ended when Vonn caught a gate and crashed, lying on the ground. On the television broadcast, she was heard screaming in pain before being taken away by helicopter.
Later that evening, international media reported that Vonn had undergone surgery for a fracture in her already injured left leg. On Monday, Italian news agency Ansa reported that Vonn had undergone another operation.
And Vonn herself writes that more surgeries will be required in the future due to the extent of the injury.
“No regrets”
However, she firmly claims that neither the cruciate ligament injury nor previous injuries had anything to do with the crash.
“In a downhill race, the difference between a line choice and a catastrophic crash can be as small as a few centimeters,” writes Vonn.
"Even though yesterday didn't end the way I wanted, and despite the incredible pain it brought, I don't regret anything," she continues.
Vonn, 41, has not commented on her athletic future. Earlier on Monday, her father, Alan Kildow, said in an interview with the American AP that he hopes there will be "no more competitions," if he has his say.
“Had been given the go-ahead”
Alan Kildow, who is himself a former alpine skier and the one who taught Lindsey to ski, has been at his daughter's side at the hospital where she was taken after the crash.
"First the shock and the horror of seeing it happen. You're just afraid of what the consequences might be," he says of the crash.
Vonn's father agrees with his daughter that the crash had nothing to do with her choosing to compete with a torn cruciate ligament.
"She had been given the go-ahead to race and showed that she could during her two training runs."
The Olympic competition in Italy was supposed to be another success for the American, who made a comeback last year after a six-year absence. Before the Olympics, she had won downhill races and finished on the podium in seven of eight World Cup races.
