Will she or won’t she?
Lindsey Vonn is expected to announce at a news conference with Team USA speed alpine skiers Tuesday afternoon whether she’ll compete at the 2026 Winter Games that begin Friday in Milan-Cortina, Italy.
The 41-year-old legendary skier had to be airlifted in a helicopter to a hospital after a Jan. 30 crash during a ski race in Switzerland. She told her Instagram followers that she had injured her left knee and was “discussing the situation” with her doctors and team.
“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. My Olympic dream is not over," posted Vonn, who came out of retirement last season following a partial replacement of her right knee.
“I’m doing my best right now,” she said in a later post that include video of her crash along with prayer hands and fingers crossed emojis. Before the accident, she had been winning race after race and last season, had become the oldest woman to medal in a skiing World Cup at 40.
An update over the weekend from Vonn’s personal coach, Chris Knight, spurred speculation she still may ski in what would be her fifth Winter Games. Vonn made her Olympic debut at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
“No she is not racing today but preparing for Cortina as usual,” Knight said in a text message to The Associated Press, confirmed Vonn was not returning to compete at the World Cup race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
NBC, which holds U.S. broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2036, including Utah’s next Olympics, the 2034 Winter Games, called the coach’s text ”telling” and declaring, “Few can rally as impressively as three-time Olympic medalist Lindsey Vonn.”
The New York Post quoted an unnamed NBC source Saturday saying Vonn was likely to be at the Olympics.
“Based on reports we’re hearing, we think she’s going to compete,” the source is quoted as saying. “Lindsay is so accomplished, obviously she’s a star … she’s been around for 24 years and she’s missed Olympics before, but we would not put anything past her.”
An unnamed friend of Vonn’s told The New York Post, “Lindsey’s telling everyone ‘Stay strong, don’t be a Debbie Downer.’ She needs everyone to give her positive energy to get through this — that’s the number-one message to her friends and family."
Vonn is playing a prominent role in the organizing of the Utah 2034 Games as one of six members of the executive committee empowered to make decisions about the state’s next Olympics and Paralympics for athletes with disabilities that follows.
The athletes family initiative that helped secure a second Winter Games for the state came from Vonn’s own experiences. Over the years, she saw firsthand the need to provide the families of athletes with housing, transportation, tickets and other services.
Vonn’s longtime friend, Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, was upbeat about the possibility of her competing in Cortina.
“If anyone can do it, she can,” Bullock told the Deseret News.