You will not find an elite level athlete who hasn’t at some point played hurt. Especially late in the season or when the stakes are high, you almost expect something of the walking wounded. That obviously comes with limitations. Like it’s one thing playing with a strained calf. It’s another trying to run on a torn Achillies, which I think is technically impossible.
American Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn knows a bit about playing hurt, or skiing as it is. She missed the 2014 Olympics with a torn ACL. She’s broken more bones than you can count, including a broken pinkie at the Vancouver Olympics and her upper arm and knee in 2016. She had knee replacement in 2024 to deal with chronic pain, about four years into her retirement from competitive sport. And, as you likely know, she recently ruptured her ACL about two weeks ago, nine days before she was to ski in the downhill of the 26 Olympic Games, having ended her retirement last year for what we assumed was one last go at the age of 41.
We assumed, wrongly, that a torn ACL meant the end of the story. That as close as she got to one more chance at a medal, father time would remain undefeated. Of course, what happened was Vonn decided to ski with a torn ACL and a brace, and only 13 seconds into her first run clipped a gate with her arm and crashed violently to a stop before being airlifted off the course. She badly fractured her left leg and has already had three surgeries to repair the damage. And at least according to Vonn’s posts, she’s doing okay.
To be fair, Vonn is not the first skier to try and compete on a bad ACL. In 2022, American Breezy Johnson kept training for the Beijing Games on a torn ACL. She crashed a few weeks later and missed the Olympics. Decades ago, Cindy Nelson tore a bunch of stuff, including her ACL, and somehow skied a few weeks later in the Games. So it’s not impossible. But it’s certainly not advised. And, for the record, none of those aforementioned were 41 years old.
Not surprisingly, leading up to Vonn’s race, broadcasts took a predictable narrative. We heard words like drama, courage, toughness, bravery, and so on. In many regards, those are all true. Let’s be clear, just going down what looks like a nearly vertical sheet of ice in excess of 80 miles an hour is super human. I don’t think I’d have the guts to even fly one of those drones behind them that have become the talk of the Games. So anything I say is in no way a critique of Vonn’s bravery, mettle, or talent. Let’s take as a given she’s all that.
But let’s also be clear, it would be naïve to think that this wasn’t going to happen – or was at least a strong possibility. Lindsey Vonn had one of the worst things happen to her as an athlete. A terrible injury on the cusp of the event she’d been training for all year – and after a six-year layoff, where we assumed she had hung up her skis. Which meant she was going to have to do the hardest thing any athlete has to do, way harder than compete. She was going to have to walk away. And in her case, likely forever. That was the mountain in front of her, one that for once was actually too steep for her to go down.
So, instead, she decided to compete. Go out on her terms, as she told the press going into the event. Which, as we now see, came with a pretty catastrophic ending. And even though Vonn said the injury had nothing to do with the crash, that’s certainly not how it looks. It’s not fair for me to take pot shots at Lindsey Vonn, especially when she’s got a tough road to recovery as it is. Or try to psychoanalyze why an athlete can’t figure out when to say when. It feels like the end of the movie The Wrestler, when Mickey Rourke can’t say no to one last dive off the top rope. When you’ve never really learned what it is to walk away, or what it’s like when the games are over for good.
So I won’t say what Lindsey Vonn did was wrong. But I won’t say it was right either. And that hopefully when other folks watch the race, they’ll realize you can’t always play hurt.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the College of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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