Lindsey Vonn’s father tells the AP he wants her to retire after her Olympic crash

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Lindsey Vonn’s father said Monday that the American superstar will no longer race if he has any influence over her decision and that she will not return to the Winter Olympics after breaking her left leg in the downhill over the weekend.

“She’s 41 years old and this is the end of her career,” Alan Kildow said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it.”

Kildow and the rest of Vonn’s family — a brother and two sisters — have been with Vonn while she is being treated at a hospital in Treviso following her fall and helicopter evacuation from the course in Cortina on Sunday.

Vonn said late Monday on Instagram that she had sustained a “complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly."

Kildow declined to comment on the injuries, but he did address how Vonn was doing emotionally.

“She’s a very strong individual,” Kildow said. “She knows physical pain and she understands the circumstances that she finds herself in. And she’s able to handle it. Better than I expected. She’s a very, very strong person. And so I think she’s handling it real well.”

Kildow — a former ski racer himself who taught his daughter to race — said he slept in his daughter’s hospital room overnight.

“She has somebody with her — or multiple people with her — at all times,” Kildow said. “We’ll have people here as long as she’s here.”

Kildow and the rest of Vonn’s family watched the crash from the finish area with all of the other spectators.

“First, the shock and the horror of the whole thing, seeing a crash like that,” Kildow said of what he felt watching the scene unfold. “It can be dramatic and traumatic. You’re just horrified at what those kinds of impacts have.

“You can go into a shock an emotional psychological shock,” he added. “Because it’s difficult to just accept what’s happened. But she’s well cared for. … And the USOC and the U.S. Ski team have a very, very top-notch doctor with her and she is being very well cared for here in Italy.”

Vonn raced the downhill despite tearing the ACL in her left knee nine days earlier in another crash.

“What happened to her had nothing to do with the ACL issue on her left leg. Nothing,” Kildow said. “She had demonstrated that she was able to function at a very high level with the two downhill training runs. … And she had been cleared by high level physicians to ski.”

Kildow said the crash was less a result of Vonn’s knee injury than the way she pushed the limits of her racing line to the point where she clipped a gate early in her run and got knocked out of control.

“There are times sometimes in any race, but especially in downhill, where you have to take a little speed off,” he said. “You can give yourself a little bit more leeway on the line so you don’t put yourself in a questionable position.”

Vonn, who holds the record of 12 World Cup victories in Cortina, returned to the circuit last season after nearly six years of retirement and after a partial titanium replacement surgery in her right knee. She won two downhills and finished on the podium in seven of the eight World Cup races that she finished this season — and came fourth in the other one.

“She won 84 World Cup races. And not many people do that,” Kildow said, referring to Vonn’s victory total, which place her second on the all-time women’s list behind teammate Mikaela Shiffrin’s record 108 wins.

“And there’s a hell of a lot of the difference between a speed race, a downhill especially, and a slalom,” Kildow added.

Vonn will not return to the Olympics to cheer on teammates or for anything else, Kildow said.

“No, she’s not that in kind of situation,” he said. “She will be going home at an appropriate point in time.”

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

United States' Lindsey Vonn's father Alan Kildow is interviewed ahead of an alpine ski women's downhill race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Dampf)

United States' Lindsey Vonn crashes 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)

FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn poses with her career medals with her father Alan Kildow, in the finish area after the women's downhill race, at the alpine ski World Championships in Are, Sweden, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati, File)

United States' Lindsey Vonn is airlifted away after a crash 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)

Police officers stand at the doors of a buildin in 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)

FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn, right, poses for photographs with her father Alan Kildow at the end of an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill race, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Dampf, File)

BOSTON (AP) — A throng of revelers lined the streets of South Boston on Sunday for the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, one of the nation’s largest celebrations of Irish heritage.

The parade drew crowds from across Massachusetts and beyond, with marching bands, floats, veterans’ groups and local organizations making their way through South Boston.

Police lined the route as Irish dancers, bagpipers and Revolutionary War reenactors marched past cheering spectators. College students stood on rooftops and people leaned over porch railings to watch, many wearing green beads and Boston Celtics gear.

One student stood out in a fluffy green robe, while parents pushed toddlers in strollers draped with Irish flags.

The event is a major annual tradition in Boston, a city with deep Irish roots, and often coincides with celebrations of Evacuation Day, which commemorates the departure of British troops from Boston in 1776. Evacuation Day this year falls on Tuesday.

Preparations took weeks, as police, transit officials and emergency crews coordinated safety and transportation plans for the large crowds that packed the neighborhood.

A rider portraying Paul Revere is followed by re-enactors marching as Revolutionary War British soldiers in red coats during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Marchers and floats pass hundreds of thousands of spectators during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Irish dancers step dance down Dorchester Avenue during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Spectators line up on Dorchester Avenue during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, center, marches through Andrew Square during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A spectator walks with an Irish shamrock flag during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Women wearing leprechaun hats and beards smile as confetti cannons blast during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade through the South Boston neighborhood, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

FILE - A group of firemen from around the United States pose for a selfie with spectators while marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade, March 17, 2024, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)