Lindsey Vonn's choice to race Olympic downhill on injured knee questioned after crash

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The fallout from Lindsey Vonn's devastating crash in the Olympic downhill included a key question: Given her severely injured left knee, should she have even been allowed on a course that is dangerous even to perfectly healthy skiers?

The resounding answer on social media was no. The answer from the skiing community was yes.

Nine days before Sunday's crash, the 41-year-old American ruptured the ACL in her left knee. It is an injury that sidelines pro athletes for months, but ski racers have on occasion competed that way. She appeared stable in two downhill training runs at the Milan Cortina Games.

When she arrived in Cortina last week, Vonn said she had consulted with her team of physicians and trainers before deciding to move ahead with racing. The International Ski and Snowboard Federation does not check on the injury statuses of athletes.

"I firmly believe that this has to be decided by the individual athlete,” FIS president Johan Eliasch said Monday in Bormio. “And in her case, she certainly knows her injuries on her body better than anybody else. And if you look around here today with all the athletes, the athletes yesterday, every single athlete has a small injury of some kind.

“What is also important for people to understand, that the accident that she had yesterday, she was incredibly unlucky. It was a one in a 1,000,” Eliasch added. “She got too close to the gate, and she got stuck when she was in the air in the gate and started rotating. No one can recover from that, unless you do a 360. … This is something which is part of ski racing. It’s a dangerous sport.”

The Italian hospital in Treviso where Vonn was being treated said late Sunday she had undergone surgery to repair a broken left leg. The U.S. Ski Team has said only that Vonn “sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.”

The hospital initially said it would release an update Monday, then said updates regarding Vonn’s condition would come from her team.

Pierre Ducrey, the sports director for the International Olympic Committee, noted Vonn was able to train and had experts counseling her decision.

“So from that point of view, I don’t think we can say that she should or shouldn’t have participated. This decision was really hers and her team to take,” he said. “She made the decision and unfortunately it led to the injury, but I think it’s really the way that the decision gets made for every athlete that participates to the downhill.”

Onlookers on social media wondered if Vonn’s ruptured ACL could have played a factor in her crash near the top of the Olympia delle Tofana course, where she has a World Cup record 12 wins. That maybe, on a healthy left knee, she would not have clipped a gate and been able to stave off a crash.

“Totally incorrect,” Vonn's teammate Keely Cashman — who was knocked unconsious in a serious crash five years ago — said Monday. “People that don’t know ski racing don’t really understand what happened yesterday. She hooked her arm on the gate, which twisted her around. She was going probably 70 miles an hour, and so that twists your body around. That has nothing to do with her ACL, nothing to with her knee. I think a lot of people are ridiculing that, and a lot people don’t (know) what’s going on."

The hours after her crash was filled with opinions, mostly of the second-guessing nature. Like, should someone have intervened?

“It’s her choice,” veteran skier Federica Brignone of Italy said. “If it’s your body, then you decide what to do, whether to race or not. It’s not up to others. Only you.”

Brignone suffered multiple fractures in her tibial plateau and fibula bone in her left leg during a crash in April and made it back to compete in the Olympic downhill — finishing 10th.

American downhiller Kyle Negomir echoed that thought.

“Lindsey’s a grown woman, and the best speed skier to ever do this sport. If she made her decision, I think she should absolutely be allowed to take that risk,” Negomir said. “She’s obviously good enough that she’s capable of pulling it off. Just because it happened to not pan out yesterday doesn’t mean that it definitely wasn’t a possibility that she could just crush it and have a perfect run.”

Graham reported from Bormio. AP Sports Writer Will Graves in Treviso and Daniella Matar in Milan contributed to this report.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

United States' Lindsey Vonn concentrates ahead of an alpine ski, women's downhill official training, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati)

General view of Ca' Foncello Hospital in Treviso, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, where U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn is hospitalized with a broken leg after crashing during the women's downhill competition at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)

United States' Lindsey Vonn crashes into a gate during an alpine ski women's downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting in mixed trading Monday, a downshift following bursts higher for stocks in Asia earlier in the day and Wall Street’s own rally to close last week.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% and inched closer to its record set two weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 13 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% higher.

The relatively modest moves followed a 3.9% burst higher for Japan’s Nikkei 225 to a record. Stocks rallied there following a landslide victory for the prime minister’s political party in a parliamentary election. The thought is that will give Sanae Takaichi more power to push through reforms that will boost the economy and market.

On Wall Street, the U.S. stock market is coming off its best day since May to close last week, but several concerns still hang over the market. That includes criticism that stocks have simply become too expensive following their run to records.

Worries are also heavy about whether all the huge spending by Big Tech and other companies on AI can produce enough profit to make the investments worth it.

Slightly more stocks fell in the S&P 500 than rose, but some of the winners from that rush into AI helped prop up the market. Chip companies rose, for example, with Nvidia up 3.4% and Broadcom up 4%. They were two of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500.

Kroger climbed 6.3% after the grocer named a former Walmart executive as its new chief executive officer.

Transocean reversed an early loss and rose 2.8% after the offshore drilling company said it would buy Valaris in an all-stock deal valued at $5.8 billion. Valaris leaped 29%.

On the losing end was Hims & Hers, which sank 24.5% after Novo Nordisk filed a lawsuit and alleged Hims & Hers is unlawfully selling versions of its weight-loss treatments. The suit follows a move by the U.S Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to the ingredients needed to copy popular weight-loss medications.

Hims & Hers said, “Big Phama is weaponizing the US judicial system to limit consumer choice” in a post on the X account for the company's communications team.

Novo Nordisk’s stock that trades in the United States rose 3.3%.

Workday fell 6.7% after the AI platform said its CEO, Carl Eschenbach, is stepping down. Company Co-founder Aneel Bhusri is returning as chief executive.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of several potentially market-moving reports coming later in the week. The U.S. government will offer the latest monthly update on the health of the job market on Wednesday. Friday will bring the latest monthly reading of inflation at the consumer level.

Either report could sway expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates. The Fed has put its cuts to interest rates on hold, but a weakening of the job market could push it to resume more quickly. Too-hot inflation, on the other hand, could keep it on hold for longer.

One of the reasons the U.S. stock market remains close to records is the expectation that the Fed will continue cutting interest rates later this year. Lower rates can give the economy a boost, though they can also worsen inflation.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.21% from 4.22% late Friday.

Other markets that had whipped through more violent moves over recent weeks were showing some more strength or stability.

Gold rose 2.3% to climb back above $5,000 per ounce. It’s been swinging sharply after roughly doubling in price over 12 months and, it has bounced between $4,500 and nearly $5,600. Silver, whose price has been even wilder, jumped 7.6% Monday.

Bitcoin dipped back toward $70,000 after climbing above $71,000 over the weekend. It had dropped close to $60,000 last week, more than halfway below its record set in October.

In stock markets abroad, indexes jumped across Asia with Japan’s surge. South Korea’s Kospi leaped 4.1%, while stocks rose 1.8% in Hong Kong and 1.4% in Shanghai.

The gains were more modest in Europe, where Germany's DAX returned 1.1% and France's CAC 40 rose 0.5%.

AP Videojournalist Mayuko Ono and AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

Specialist Anthony Matesic works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A security guard stands guard at the gate of Tokyo Stock Exchange building, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

People stand in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)