It's easy to read something into this: Lindsey Vonn was among the 48 athletes nominated Wednesday to the U.S. Alpine ski team for the upcoming season.
For the moment, that's just a formality based on results. The 41-year-old Vonn is still at least a year and a half — along with an ACL surgery — away from even thinking about returning to the World Cup circuit.
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FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn arrives at the finish area during the alpine ski women's downhill training at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - FILE - Lindsey Vonn, of the United States, poses with all the Olympic medals and Women's World Cup skiing trophies she has won in her career, on March 13, 2010, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. (AP Photo/Giovanni Auletta, File)
Lindsey Vonn arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "Costume Art" exhibition on Monday, May 4, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Lindsey Vonn arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "Costume Art" exhibition on Monday, May 4, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
She may also retire. She's still sorting all of that out.
Vonn has already undergone eight surgeries since her crash in the women's downhill race on Feb. 8 at the Milan Cortina Games. She suffered a complex tibia fracture that nearly led to amputating her left leg. Vonn was competing in the race on a torn left ACL, which she injured in a crash leading into the Winter Olympics.
The nomination process is the first phase of making the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team. Those ski racers who accept the nomination, and meet the requirements, will be officially announced to the team in October. The opening World Cup races take place with a giant slalom in Söelden, Austria, in late October.
Other athletes who were nominated include Mikaela Shiffrin, the reigning World Cup overall champion and three-time Olympic gold medalist, along with Olympic downhill champion Breezy Johnson. On the men's side, Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who captured his second Olympic super-G silver medal in Italy, was selected.
Paula Moltzan and Jacqueline Wiles also earned a nomination to the A-team after combining to take an Olympic bronze in the women's team combined. Johnson and Shiffrin finished fourth in that event. Lauren Macuga is on the nomination list, too. She missed the Milan Cortina Games after tearing her ACL.
Vonn, a three-time Olympic medalist, came out of retirement in November 2024 after nearly six years away. She was feeling healthy and strong again following a partial titanium implant in her right knee.
She found her speed, too, winning two World Cup races during the 2025-26 season and recording three other podium finishes in five races. She was leading the World Cup downhill standings before her crash at the Olympics. She wound up fifth.
Vonn, who's won 84 World Cup races, has maintained she's not ready to decide her future. Instead, she's focused on healing. Vonn recently attended the Met Gala, using only a cane.
AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn arrives at the finish area during the alpine ski women's downhill training at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - FILE - Lindsey Vonn, of the United States, poses with all the Olympic medals and Women's World Cup skiing trophies she has won in her career, on March 13, 2010, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. (AP Photo/Giovanni Auletta, File)
Lindsey Vonn arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "Costume Art" exhibition on Monday, May 4, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Lindsey Vonn arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the "Costume Art" exhibition on Monday, May 4, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
PRAIA, Cape Verde (AP) — Two patients with hantavirus and one suspected of infection were evacuated from a cruise ship and being flown to the Netherlands on Wednesday, the U.N. health agency said. The ship at the center of the deadly outbreak departed Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board and headed to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Associated Press footage showed health workers in protective gear evacuating three passengers, including the ship's British doctor, who Spain's health ministry said had been in “serious condition” but has improved. An air ambulance later departed. On Wednesday evening, a medical evacuation flight arrived at Amsterdam's airport.
Three people have died, and one body remained on the ship, the World Health Organization said. Of the eight cases recorded, five were confirmed by laboratory testing.
Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and can spread person-to-person, though that is rare, according to the WHO, whose top epidemic expert said the risk to the public is low.
Health officials in Europe and Africa are trying to identify people who may have had contact with people who earlier left the ship, which departed April 1 from South America for stops in Antarctica and several remote Atlantic islands.
Two Argentine officials investigating the origins of the outbreak said the government's leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while bird-watching in the city of Ushuaia before boarding.
They said the couple visited a landfill during the tour and may have been exposed to rodents. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, with the investigation ongoing. Authorities previously said Ushuaia and surrounding Tierra del Fuego province had never recorded a hantavirus case.
The Dutch foreign ministry said the three people evacuated were a 41-year-old Dutch national, a 56-year-old British national and a 65-year-old German national who would be transferred to specialized hospitals in Europe. WHO said Wednesday that testing in Senegal confirmed that two of the evacuees were infected with hantavirus.
Two of the evacuees remain in "serious condition," Dutch ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, and the third had no symptoms but was “closely associated” with a German passenger who died on the MV Hondius ship on May 2.
Health officials said passengers and crew members still on the ship are without symptoms and isolating in their cabins. Their journey to the Canary Islands will take three or four days, Spain’s health ministry said, adding that the arrival “won´t represent any risk for the public."
Still, the Canary Islands regional president , Fernando Clavijo, said he worried about the risk to the population and demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Authorities said passengers tested positive for the Andes virus, a species of hantavirus found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile. The virus can spread between people, though that’s rare and only through close contact, according to the WHO. The health agency has never seen a hantavirus outbreak on a ship.
“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” the WHO's top epidemic expert, Maria Van Kerkhove, said. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”
Two Dutch infectious diseases experts were joining the ship, Van Kerkhove said. Access to clinical care is important, she said, because infected people can develop severe acute respiratory distress and need oxygen or mechanical ventilation. The hantavirus incubation period can be one to six weeks, or more, she said.
The ship's itinerary included stops across the South Atlantic, including mainland Antarctica and the remote islands of South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension.
Authorities in Switzerland said a former passenger who tested positive was being treated at a Zurich hospital. South African authorities earlier said two passengers who were transferred there tested positive. One, a British man, was in intensive care; the other collapsed and died in South Africa.
Swiss health office spokesperson Simon Ming said the patient there had left the ship during its St. Helena stop. It was not clear when or how he traveled to Switzerland and how many other countries he might have passed through.
The patient’s wife hasn’t shown symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution, a statement by the office said.
“There is currently no risk to the Swiss public," the office said, while looking into whether the patient had come into contact with others.
At St. Helena, the body of the Dutch man suspected to be the first hantavirus case on board was taken off the ship. His wife flew to South Africa, where she collapsed at the Johannesburg airport and died.
Later, a British man was evacuated at Ascension Island and taken to South Africa.
The ship's operator has not said if other people left at those or other locations.
The South African health ministry says officials have traced 42 out of 62 people, including health workers, they believe had contact with the two infected passengers who traveled there. The 42 tested negative for hantavirus.
But 20 people still need to be traced, including five people who may have been on flights to South Africa with some of the passengers as well as flight crew members.
Some may have now traveled overseas, the ministry said.
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Keaten from Geneva. Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria; Mark Banchereau in Dakar, Senegal; Joseph Wilson in Barcelona; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Michelle Gumede and Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg, contributed to this report.
This version corrects to say the evacuated doctor is British.
An air ambulance takes off with evacuated patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship from the airport in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
An air ambulance takes off with evacuated patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship from the airport in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear arrive to evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
A night view of the MV Hondius cruise ship anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
