American skier Lindsey Vonn has had her ninth operation after breaking a leg and an ankle in a crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The 42-year-old posted a video on social media before the procedure, saying she was "praying" it would be her last. She said she was "nervous and anxious" but "excited to hopefully put it behind me."
Vonn explained that surgeons would remove all of the hardware installed during her eight earlier procedures to repair her anterior cruciate ligament. "I'm doing this beforehand because I'm actually getting pretty nervous about it," she said. "On the day of, I'm going to be focused and rested and trying to get through it."
She said she had been waiting nine months for her bones to heal so the ligament could be fixed. "My bones healed, which is great news," she said. "But obviously now I have the ACL and that means another six to nine months."
Vonn crashed 13 seconds into her run in the Olympic downhill in Cortina, after striking a gate. She had ruptured ligaments in her left knee nine days earlier and still chose to race.
She has previously revealed that the operations meant she did not have to have her leg amputated.
Vonn won the Olympic downhill title in 2010 and is regarded as one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time. She retired in 2019 after suffering numerous leg injuries and made a surprise return in 2024 after a partial right knee replacement. She has won 84 World Cup races, second on the all-time women's list behind fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin.
