Just one day after her horrific crash in the women’s downhill event at the Winter Olympics, Team USA alpine skier Lindsey Vonn on Monday declared that she had “no regrets.”
“I hope if you take away anything from my journey it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “I believe in you, just as you believed in me. ❤️LV.”
Vonn attached a photo of the frightening moment when her arm got hooked inside a gate, sending her tumbling into the snow on Sunday. She was then strapped to a stretcher and airlifted via helicopter to a nearby hospital.
Vonn, who was already battling through a severe left knee injury she sustained just before the start of the competition, wrote that her Olympic dream didn’t finish the way she intended.
“I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it,” wrote the 41-year-old, who returned to competitive skiing in 2024 following a years-long retirement due to other injuries. “Because in Downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches.”
