Lindsey Vonn regrets nothing and opens on her comeback: "13 really nice seconds"

Lindsey Vonn in an interview with Vanity Fair returned to talk about her serious accident in Cortina d’Ampezzo on the day of the Olympic downhill. The American champion’s Games lasted just 13 seconds before the tragic fall that threatened to cost her a leg.

“It was 13 really nice seconds,” Vonn said, “. I’m not crazy. I know what I can and cannot do. Everyone said it was crazy and that I was taking someone else’s place. But it was all nonsense. I was in exactly the state of mind I wanted to be in. I was ready, I was number one in the world, running for an Olympic medal. Now I’m in a wheelchair.”

Vonn remembers lucidly what happened after the fall, “My leg was broken. The skis were still attached, but my leg was all twisted and I couldn’t get them off. I couldn’t move and was screaming for help. That pain was etched in my brain. But I don’t want to be remembered for this incident. No one had ever managed to do what I did before the Olympics: I wanted to win at the Games and I wanted to win the downhill specialty cup, and I was on the right track to do it.”

The star skier will have to sit still for at least a year to recover 100 percent use of her leg; thinking about a return to the track at her age is a gamble but she has not given up yet: “I don’t like to close the door on anything, because you never know what can happen. I have no idea what my life will be like in two years, three or four.”

“I might have children, or I might not and go back to competing. It’s hard to say after an injury like that. It’s a total disaster. It would be terrible if my career were to end with that descent.”