Overall ski champion Brignone still smiling despite the possibility her Olympic dream is over

MILAN (AP) — Overall World Cup skiing champion Federica Brignone was still smiling Friday despite the very real possibility that her Olympic dream could be over.

Barely 24 hours after breaking multiple bones in her left leg during a giant slalom crash, Brignone posted a photo from the hospital of her grinning and holding up two fingers in a victory sign.

Brignone underwent an operation at La Madonnina clinic in Milan on Thursday night after a crash at the Italian championships earlier in the day.

Surgeons found that she had also torn her ACL in a further setback for the 34-year-old Italian's hopes of competing at a home Olympics in 10 months. She was expected to be one of her country's stars of the Milan-Cortina Games.

“As usual, I do things big or I don’t do them!” Brignone wrote in an Instagram post. "This time I did it huge (negatively).

Brignone also thanked those who had treated her on the slope, as well as the surgeons and other medical staff, and her friends for “keeping me company and making me laugh.”

The Italian Winter Sports Federation described the surgery as a “complete success,” but said the “rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament was also highlighted” and would be evaluated in the coming weeks.

The Italian star was diagnosed with multiple fractures in her tibial plateau and fibula bone, the federation said.

Surgeons also made a “ligament repair of the medial compartment of the knee,” the federation's statement said late Thursday.

The operation was led by federation medical chief Andrea Panzeri.

Brignone was the race leader at the Lusia ski area in Val di Fassa but in her second run she crashed through a gate and lost control, prompting her to tumble and crash through the next gate, too. She was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Trento before being transferred to Milan.

Before the surgery, Panzeri had estimated that Brignone would be out for “months.”

“In the happiest moment of my career that was really the last thing I needed,” Italian news agency ANSA quoted Brignone as saying earlier Friday. “There was still a month of work ahead of me and I couldn’t wait to do it.

“Instead I will have to face a new challenge into which I will put my all, as always.”

Brignone, who won the giant slalom at the world championships in February, also won 10 World Cup races across three different disciplines (five giant slaloms, three super-Gs and two downhills) this season. At 34, she became the oldest woman to win a World Cup race.

One of those World Cup wins came in a super-G on the Olympia delle Tofane course in Cortina that will host women’s Alpine skiing at the Milan-Cortina Olympics next February — her first career victory at the venue.

“I am sure she will be back on the slopes, in a month – and I’m talking from experience – she will already feel better,” said Italian former skier Deborah Compagnoni, who won two of her three Olympic gold medals after a serious injury.

“She has grit and character, she’s a tiger, she knows how to fight, she will give her all to return and manage this period as best as possible. I had some wonderful races after my injuries, and I wish that for her too.”

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

Italy's Federica Brignone speeds down the course during a giant slalom at the Italian championships in the Lusia ski area, in Val di Fassa, Italy, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Elvis Piazzi)

Italy's Federica Brignone is assisted before being flown by helicopter to an hospital, after she broke multiple bones in her left leg during a giant slalom crash at the Italian championships in the Lusia ski area, in Val di Fassa, Italy, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Elvis Piazzi)

Italy's Federica Brignone is carried away on a toboga after she broke multiple bones in her left leg during a giant slalom crash at the Italian championships in the Lusia ski area, in Val di Fassa, Italy, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Elvis Piazzi)

BERLIN (AP) — European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.

After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.

Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.

Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.

The U.S. government late Sunday said in a social media post on Witkoff’s account after the five-hour meeting that “a lot of progress was made.”

Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.

Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.

The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”

“Pax Americana” refers to the U.S.’s postwar dominance as a superpower that has brought relative peace to the globe.

Merz warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”

“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.

Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”

Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.

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Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland.

Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, leaves through a hotel garage for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz,stands in his office in the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)

Steve Witkoff, special envoy of the United States, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine, at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

Jared Kushner, entrepreneur and former chief adviser to President Donald Trump, arrives for talks between representatives of the U.S. and Ukraine at the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right, watches Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arriving at the chancellory in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Maryam Majd)