In recent weeks, the big unanswered question about skiing superstar Lindsey Vonn as she headed toward the 2014 Winter Olympics was whether the rumors about her dating Tiger Woods were true.
Vonn and her publicists had succeeded in doing a nifty verbal tap dance of non-denial denials, the latest in a Sunday news conference at the World Alpine Ski Championships in Schladming, Austria.
The Woods question suddenly has been superseded by another about Vonn, who won't be doing any sort of dancing for the foreseeable future.
That question is what kind of physical condition Vonn can be in when the Sochi Winter Games open a year from Thursday.
It became an issue after she tore the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in her right knee and broke the upper end of a right leg bone when she lost control and crashed midway through Tuesday's super-G, the first event of the world championships. Vonn will need surgery to reconstruct the knee, which bent into a position that looked as painful as it was.
"It will probably take a minimum of six months for her to start competing again, but not at the highest level," said orthopedic surgeon Bill Mallon, familiar with such injuries but not briefed on Vonn's case. "It may take a couple of months after that for her to get back to her previous level — so maybe November. That doesn't give her a lot of time for Sochi. I think she can make it."
Video of the incident is not for the faint of heart — from Vonn's wails of agony to the wide-eyed, open-mouthed reaction of her leading rival this season, Tina Maze of Slovenia, who won the race. But if you search YouTube for "Lindsey Vonn crash," there will be many videos of similar accidents.
That she has been a phoenix personified several times — crash and burn, then come back to soar even higher — undoubtedly helps explain the optimism in the Tuesday statement from the U.S. Ski Team. It enumerated her injuries and said she would miss the rest of the season but was expected to return for the 2013-14 World Cup season and the 2014 Olympics.
Many top skiers shred knees and break bones and return as strong competitors. Vonn seems to have had both a remarkable number of injuries and equally remarkable resilience while becoming the greatest alpine skier in U.S. history.
But none of her previous crashes have done such extensive damage. And she is dealing with a body that now is 28 years old and has a lot of cumulative wear and tear, including arthroscopic surgery on her other knee in 2007.
The new variable in this injury is the broken bone, a fracture of the lateral tibial plateau. That involves the top end of the tibia, one of the two lower leg bones, at the outside of the knee.
Mallon said that type of break usually is seen in older adults, especially women, with osteoporosis. There often is associated cartilage damage.
Vonn appeared to lose her balance after coming off a small jump in a race that started nearly three hours late because of fog. Trying to stabilize herself in the air with arm movements proved futile. Her right ski caught on the landing, and she immediately tumbled onto her head before sliding several yards down the slope.
Vonn was airlifted from the course to a hospital for evaluation and later released. Eventual surgery almost certainly would be done in the United States.
This is the fourth straight biennial world championship in which Vonn either has been injured or dealing with an injury. She injured a knee in 2007, needed tendon surgery in 2009 after cutting a thumb on a champagne bottle while celebrating a second gold medal and caused controversy by skiing in 2011 (and winning a downhill silver) with the after-effects of a concussion.
She has had similar problems in two Olympics. In 2006 at Turin, Italy, a crash in downhill training had doctors concerned about a spine injury. In 2010, Vonn arrived in Vancouver with a bruised shin she called the most painful injury of her career and went on to win the downhill and take bronze in the Super G.
"She is a tough girl,'' U.S. ski team doctor Bill Sterett said in 2010. "You can never discount Lindsey and how tough she is and how much she wants this."
Sterett, an orthopedic surgeon, flew with Vonn in the medivac helicopter that took her from the slopes in Italy to a trauma hospital. Two days later, she finished eighth in the downhill.
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