CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy — Lindsey Vonn knows the Olympic downhill course better than anyone.
She has won a record 12 World Cup races on the Olympia delle Tofane track — six downhills and six super‑Gs — and has 20 total podium finishes there dating back to her first year on the circuit in 2004.
So how did the 41‑year‑old American standout lose control just 12.5 seconds into her run and crash at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Sunday?
Here’s what happened and why.
The highlight of the downhill course is the Tofana schuss, a narrow chute between two Dolomite rock walls where skiers reach 80 mph (130 kph).
But the real key comes above the schuss, where a crucial right turn includes an uphill stretch. That’s where Vonn went down.
“It’s incredibly reverse banked,” said Kristian Ghedina, the Cortina native and former racer who grew up just below the finish line. “That’s where your speed for the rest of the course gets determined and if you don’t take the right trajectory it makes a huge difference because you end up going uphill.”
While fighting that reverse bank and drifting slightly uphill, Vonn was launched into the air by a bump and clipped the fourth gate with her right side.
That’s when the crash began.
Vonn tried to twist and regain balance in mid‑air but landed awkwardly with her skis perpendicular to the fall line, ensuring a hard fall. She tumbled, bounced into the air again and landed on her neck area before sliding to a stop in the middle of the course, away from safety netting but clearly injured.
Hours later, Vonn underwent surgery for a broken left leg and was reported to be in stable condition.
“It’s super flat after it so the goal is to be as close to that gate as possible and she really nailed the turn but she was too close to it so she got hooked into it,” Norwegian skier Kajsa Vickhoff Lie said. “But that’s how it is with the Olympics, you really want to be on the limit and she was a little bit over the limit.”
Lie added that the final bump in that section is “more of a kicker” this year, which is why Vonn was popped up so suddenly.
“I watched the video, and probably like anybody else, saw that she went through that panel, that uphill double, and for sure kicked her in the air and there was a pretty significant fall after that,” head U.S. ski coach Paul Kristofic told The Associated Press.
Women’s race director Peter Gerdol said the section where Vonn crashed was “not really more different than other years.”
“This is the Cortina downhill and this year we’re talking about the Olympics,” he told AP. “It’s awarding Olympic medals so has to be somehow challenging.”
Had attention been paid to managing the size of that bump?
“Not severely,” Gerdol said. “Because actually today, all the athletes went through quite easily. Lindsey made a mistake and it happens. It can happen in any section of the course. It happened there but it could have been in another.”
When she came to a stop, Vonn’s skis pointed in opposite directions, still attached to her bindings. She moved her left arm toward her body but remained largely immobile until help arrived. After several minutes of medical care, she was airlifted away by helicopter.
The mandatory safety air bag under her racing suit deployed during the crash, equipment supplier Dainese confirmed to AP. The device, triggered by algorithm when racers lose control, may have softened her landing.
It was clear the air bag had inflated because Vonn’s chest appeared expanded as she lay on the snow.
Marco Pastore, who works with Dainese’s safety system, said the air bag deflates after about 20 seconds, so it likely did so while Vonn was lying on the course. Eventually, Dainese will try to retrieve a “black box” sensor that could provide data from the fall.
“She was wearing it when they took her away in the helicopter,” Pastore said. “So we haven’t gotten the data yet.”
AP Sports Writer Steve Douglas contributed to this report.
