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Lindsey Vonn completed her second successful downhill training run at the 41-year-old Milan-Cortina Olympics on Saturday, less than a week after tearing the ACL in her left knee.
The American crossed the line in third place, 0.37 seconds behind leader and teammate Breezy Johnson, and punched after seeing the results.
“It’s all good,” Vonn told The Associated Press.
Axel Lund Svindal of Norway, the 2018 Olympic downhill champion who is now coaching Vonn, said she was “very calm” after the race and “didn’t talk about her knee.”
“And I didn’t want to ask, because I realized that was a good sign,” said Svindal. “When she’s calm, it means she feels in control. She knows she has to push harder tomorrow because the rest of the girls are doing it and it’s Olympic downhill – unless you push hard, you’re not going to walk away with a medal. I think she’s ready for that.”
Still, Vonn has been dragging her right leg during training, causing her to lose balance at times.
“Try to get less than tomorrow if we can,” Svindal said. “It’s the landings that hurt the most.”
Vonn is struggling with a large bandage covering her injured knee. In the year She underwent a partial titanium replacement in her right knee in 2024 and returned to ski racing last season after a six-year retirement. When she crashed in the final World Cup race before the Olympics, she upended not only her season, but her career.
Instead, she insisted that she would ski at the Olympics if possible, and after Thursday’s practice race was canceled, she hit the slopes of the Olympia delle Tofana with the other runners on Friday and Saturday. She finished 11th during Thursday’s training session, although the time was short because the athletes didn’t always go hard.
Svindal mentions that von Bracke affects the air, but we won’t dwell on that because I think there are a couple of doctors who will talk about that if she starts to take off the strap. Please don’t ask her this question.
Vonn has a record 12 World Cup wins at Cortina.