Despite spending weeks in the hospital and almost losing her leg, Lindsey Vonn hasn’t officially retired from skiing.
Vonn didn’t rule out a return to ski racing when speaking to TODAYs Craig Melvin Tuesday at her Park City, Utah, home in her first television interview following her crash at the 2026 Olympics.
In a March 26 Vanity Fair cover story — her first post-crash interview — Vonn discussed the moments and weeks after her crash at the 2026 Olympics and her possible return to the sport. But she elaborated on it with Melvin, telling him that she is indeed entertaining the idea of another comeback.
“I mean, much to my family’s dismay, yes,” she said. “I think it’s just something that — I mean, I’ve been, like I said, so isolated and not able to really live life outside of skiing.”
“Like, I’m still kind of trapped in this, like, I didn’t have my Olympic dream situation ... I need to walk and be out in public and, you know, be living life. And I think that will give me a different perspective,” she added. ”Right now I can’t say what the future holds because I can’t — my mind can’t get there yet.”
In her Vanity Fair interview, Vonn also acknowledged the uncertainty of what her life could look like in the future, including the possibility of motherhood, and how that could impact another comeback.
“I don’t like to close the door on anything, because you just never know what’s going to happen,” Vonn said. “I have no idea what my life will be like in two years or three years or four years. I could have two kids by then. I could have no kids and want to race again. I could live in Europe. I could be doing anything.”
Vonn told Melvin that she “can move on” from ski racing if that’s what she decides — or needs — to do, citing her previous retirement in 2019. She came out of retirement five years later.
“I mean, it’s not a question of can I. I already have, you know? And I already retired for six years. Like, I know what it’s like to not be a ski racer anymore. It’s just that ski racing is something I love to do. And I had so much fun this season that — and I never got to — I never got a final run.”
Vonn has a “very busy and full” life, she said, listing her family and friends and investments. (Vonn is an investor in the Utah Royals.)
“I have so much that fulfills my life without ski racing. It’s just something that I really love doing,” she said.
In her second season back, the 41-year-old Vonn had podiumed in seven of her eight races (she finished fourth in the eighth race) going into the 2026 Olympics. Now, she doesn’t want her crash to overshadow that, she told Melvin.
“I don’t want that to be my legacy at all, because I was having such an amazing season doing things that no one else has ever done,” she said. “And I was so proud of that. And I don’t want that to be washed away. You know? I don’t want 13 seconds to define my career because it’s so much more than that.”
What happened after Lindsey Vonn’s crash
In her Vanity Fair interview, Vonn discussed the moments and weeks after crash.
Thirteen seconds into Vonn’s run in the women’s downhill at the Olympics, Vonn’s arm got caught on one of the gates, causing her to crash.
“My leg was broken. My skis were still on. My leg was torqued, and I couldn’t get my skis off. I couldn’t move, and I was yelling for help,” Vonn told Vanity Fair. “I just needed someone to take my skis off.”
Vonn was airlifted off the mountain to a tent near the course, where Tom Hackett, the head physician for Team USA Ski and Snowboard, splinted her leg and returned her to the helicopter, which took her to Cortina’s official Olympic clinic.
There, Hackett tended to Vonn and kept paparazzi away.
Vonn received painkillers at the clinic before her CT scan, but they quickly wore off.
“Halfway through, I started sweating. I was just in such extreme pain. I screamed at the top of my lungs: ‘Get me out.' It just wouldn’t dissipate. It wouldn’t let up. It’s seared into my brain,” Vonn said.
Under Hackett’s orders, Vonn was transferred to a hospital in Treviso, Italy, via helicopter after the CT scan showed the fracture in her left leg needed surgical stabilization.
The helicopter “had trouble landing” because “paparazzi had swarmed the helipad,” according to Vanity Fair.
“It had somehow leaked that that’s where we were going,” Hackett said. “Which was extraordinary. I didn’t tell anybody.”
Lindsey Vonn’s surgeries and rehab
After her first surgery in Treviso, doctors moved Vonn to the ICU, where she fell asleep but woke up in severe pain hours later as her leg swelled and wouldn’t stop.
Hackett said Vonn wasn’t “responding to monster amounts of fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone, like every narcotic you can imagine.”
That’s when Hackett realized Vonn had compartment syndrome, which could have resulted in the amputation of Vonn’s leg if Hackett hadn’t performed surgery, as the Deseret News previously reported.
“I’m sure you’ve seen hot dogs or brats on a grill. They get more and more swollen. Then all of a sudden, they burst. They crack. That’s basically what happens with compartment syndrome,” Hackett said. “There was a very significant chance that she was going to lose all function of her leg, if not the leg itself. Best-case scenario in those situations is, you might keep your leg, but it’s going to be useless.”
Vonn underwent four surgeries in Italy and another six-hour surgery in Vail, Colorado, where Hackett rebuilt Vonn’s knee. She had to fly to Colorado on a trans-Atlantic medevac.
“I couldn’t move out of my bed, let alone somehow manage to get on (a regular) airplane,” Vonn said. “I still had a catheter.”
Now, back in Utah, Vonn’s daily routine revolves around recovering.
She spends two hours every day doing physical therapy at home and spends another two hours in a hyperbaric chamber in Heber City, she told Melvin. Afterward, she returns to work out in her home gym.