Ski great Vonn needs multiple surgeries for complex leg fracture

Ski great Lindsey Vonn has announced that she suffered a complex leg fracture in Sunday's downhill race at the Milano Cortina Olympics that will require multiple surgical operations.

The 41-year-old added in an Instagram post that she had no regrets and that her anterior cruciate ligament rupture and other past injuries were not linked to the fall in her bid to win the gold, which went to her US teammate Breezy Johnson.

Vonn, the second most successful female World Cup skier of all time with 84 wins, has had two operations in Italy, a source said, to stabilise her after a horrific crash 13 seconds into one of the most hotly anticipated races at the Winter Olympics.

"Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a story book ending or a fairy tale, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it. Because in downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as five inches," Vonn, who ruptured her ACL in a crash at a World Cup race in Switzerland 10 days ago, wrote.

"I was simply five inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash. My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever.

"Unfortunately, I sustained a complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly. While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets."

View this post on Instagram

Vonn's crash has highlighted a broader debate in elite sport over who decides when an injured athlete is fit to compete and what message those decisions send.

Vonn, the 2010 Olympic champion, had been hoping to become the oldest Alpine skiing medalist in Games history after winning two World Cup downhills this year and finishing on the podium in the other three.

She leads the downhill World Cup standings by 144 points and, while her season is over, she could still win the category's crystal globe.

Vonn, who said nothing about her future, strongly felt she had a chance to win Sunday's race on a piste where she has claimed 12 World Cup wins.

"Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. I also knew that racing was a risk. It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport," she wrote.

"And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is also the beauty of life; we can try.

"I tried. I dreamt. I jumped."

International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) president Johan Eliasch said on Tuesday: "We all wish Lindsey a full and speedy recovery and hope to see her on skis again soon."