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What Happened to Lindsey Vonn

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February 09, 2026•3 min read

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What Happened to Lindsey Vonn

If you have paid any attention to the Winter Olympics then I am sure you are aware of Lindsey Vonn and the events that have occured over the last 2 weeks. If you haven't here is the quick rundown. Lindsey is an American alpine ski racer who has been competing for a very long time and has won multiple olympic and world championship races, and she was competing this year at the age of 41. 9 days prior to her competition she tore her left ACL and after some testing with a medical team decided to go ahead and try to compete with bracing (this is the key part of this article). She made it through the test runs and then on her first official run she crashed early and ended up fracturing her femur and had to be airlifted out.

Now what I intend on talking about is purely speculative in regards to Lindsey but I believe it has to have been a key part of what happened. And we can draw some thoughts from it and apply it to our training and rehab.

So let's talk about Proprioception

Let's first define proprioception. This is the body's innate mechanism to detect movement, joint positioning, and spatial orientation by means of specialized receptors throughout the body. It is the signal to the brain about what is happening at any given moment. It's how we catch a ball, or place a foot, or adjust body weight while skiing down a mountain at 70+ mph.

And to be clear, olympic athletes are freaks of nature and they are capable of doing things we could never dream of. But when the body breaks down, things change. When Lindsey tore her ACL, her body's ability to define movement and adjust like it had been trained to do was not there, and this likely caused small mis-corrections to her movement and she clipped a ski and lost control.

What does this mean for us?

A common example is an ankle sprain, particularly a higher grade tear. What happens is the nerve endings that provide proprioception are impaired or lost and you become more at risk for re-rolling your ankle for a time. Proprioceptive training like balance work, single leg loading, plyometrics are what retrain this and allow our bodies to reorganize and correct. If you miss this in your training further complications can, and often do, arise. We do this for any major joint injury from ACL, to rotator cuff, or even post whiplash.

Comprehensive rehab should be diverse and specific to your training. This includes training the neuromotor system just as much as we build strength and mobility. We must train the brain to be ready for any stimulus and load that you might experience. This will make you a better athlete and can help you prevent injury in the first place.

On the other side of this thought, don't be afraid to go after big things even when the odds are not in your favor. Go Lindsey, go Team USA!

Happy running,

R2S team

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