American Lindsey Vonn, then going by her maiden name of Lindsey Kildow, skis down the course during her second slalom run of the women's combined in Snowbasin, Utah, at the Salt Lake City Olympics on Feb. 14, 2002. (AP file photo)

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Lindsey Vonn was over the limit. Beyond it, really. Because of course she was.

There is only one speed for maybe the fiercest competitor to ever snap into a pair of skis and point them down the side of a mountain: as fast as she possibly can, for as long as she possibly can, as relentlessly as she possibly can.

For many days during Vonn’s nearly 25 years in the spotlight, that kind of relentlessness led to glory.

Other times, like a sun-splashed Sunday in a place that’s long felt like a second home, at an event that has long served as her own personal stage, it ends in agony. This time, with a broken left leg.

Three gates into the women’s Olympic downhill in Cortina, the 41-year-old American and her surgically repaired and titanium-reinforced right knee and her waiting-to-be-surgically-repaired left knee were already in full-send territory.

If anything, Vonn was almost too perfect. Searching for every inch, every millisecond of an advantage, her right arm clipped the fourth gate. Her skis sailed out from under her. In a flash, the unlikely and stirring return that had captivated her sport was over. At least for now.

All that was left for the most decorated downhill racer — male or female — were tears, uncertainty and a helicopter lift to safety, a ride that included a sweeping turn above the grandstand at the finish, where the crowd that came to watch history instead let out an ovation neither side hopes doubled as a goodbye.

“Tragic,” International Ski and Snowboard president Johan Eliasch said moments later. “But it’s ski racing, right?”

It is. And perhaps no one is more familiar with how thin the line is between triumph and calamity than Vonn. It’s not a coincidence that her memoir is called “Rise, My Story.”

The thing that has long set Vonn apart from her peers — not that there are many left, not even on a stacked Team USA filled with women who were once little girls that grew up idolizing her — is a resiliency that borders on sheer defiance.

Fall and get back up

It’s been that way nearly from the start. She was just 22 when a sprained knee ended her World Cup season early. She became the first American woman to win the Olympic downhill, barreling to the top of the podium in Vancouver despite microfractures in her arm and a busted pinky.

The list goes on and on. There have been concussions, and the right knee seemingly impervious to staying healthy. She tore the ACL in it — twice — in 2013. A tibial plateau fracture just below the kneecap in 2016. After 2018, when she sustained a sprained left knee and a nerve injury, it became too much.

She retired the following year, saying her body was screaming at her to “STOP,” putting the words in all caps for emphasis on the Instagram post announcing her decision.

Yet that’s the thing about Vonn. Stopping is never an option. She stepped away for a while, the fire to compete a little dimmer but nowhere close to burning out.

Her decision to have knee replacement surgery in April 2024 was based on the need to help her live a pain-free life. It also created an unexpected and unprecedented opportunity.

Some laughed. Most who knew her didn’t. They weren’t surprised when she returned to competition at 40. They knew it wasn’t solely to have the victory lap her body wouldn’t let her enjoy in 2019, but to step into the starting gate and push herself — and her sport — forward.

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics