Three-time Olympic medalist Lindsey Vonn says she plans to compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics beginning Feb. 8, despite suffering a torn ACL in her left knee just nine days earlier, a decision that prompted a stark warning from a prominent sports injury physician who said it would be “amazing” if she is able to compete at all.
Dr. David Chao, formerly a longtime team doctor for the NFL’s San Diego Chargers, said that the “very high forces, high speeds, and extreme conditions” of Olympic skiing make competing in the sport with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament even more difficult than it would be for an NFL quarterback.
“I fear it may not end as well for Lindsey Vonn,” Chao, founder of the Sports Injury Central site, said in an online video statement on Tuesday.
The warning comes just days before Vonn’s scheduled Feb. 8 Olympic race.
Vonn Already Has Injured Right Knee
A series of severe knee injuries led Vonn to retire from competitive skiing in 2019. But she received a partial knee replacement in her right knee in 2024 and, after recovering from that surgery, began training for an Olympic comeback at age 41.
Her right knee was not injured in the Jan. 30 crash during a World Cup downhill race in Switzerland, but the injury to her left knee was so severe that she needed to be airlifted from the scene. She said almost immediately that she still planned to compete in the Olympics.
“This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics. But if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback,” Vonn wrote on her Instagram account. “My Olympic dream is not over.”
Doctors Skeptical of Vonn’s Ability to Compete
Vonn said she will wear a brace on her left knee while skiing in the Olympics, but Chao was skeptical that a brace would be effective for her.
“I’m speaking as someone with experience allowing athletes to compete with an ACL tear,” Chao said, recalling his tenure as Chargers team doctor. “Philip Rivers famously played on a torn ACL just six days after a scope in the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots in the 2008–09 season. He nearly won that game.”
But Chao noted that Rivers was “an immobile quarterback and was able to play with a brace and have some success.” But the “extreme conditions” of Olympic skiing present a much more difficult situation.
“A brace does not have a great chance of working. It would be amazing if Lindsey Vonn could compete, and even more amazing if she could succeed,” Chao said. “My biggest hope is that she doesn’t fall and suffer a more serious injury.”
Dr. Yana Klein, emergency and sports medicine specialist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, echoed the opinions offered by Chao in an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday.
“She might blow out her knee entirely,” Klein warned. “At these really high racing speeds, the big risk is that the knee is just not stable enough to compete.”
Vonn won a gold medal, as well as a bronze, in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. She won a second bronze medal at the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Doctor Issues Stark Warning as Lindsey Vonn Plans to Ski Olympics on Torn ACL