The Suffering Of Lindsey Vonn

I woke to a flurry of notifications on my phone. Overnight in Cortino, Lindsey Vonn violently crashed in her Olympic downhill race and was airlifted from the mountain. My group chat, made up of college friends from a variety of athletic backgrounds, was filled with screenshots of heroic EMTs, unnaturally bent legs, a single arm hooked fatefully through a plastic gate. Nine days previous, she had torn her ACL during a race in Switzerland. In the time between these two crashes, her decision to continue competing in the Olympics, to ski down a hill at 80 miles per hour, as a 41-year-old without a major ligament in her knee, was the subject of intense scrutiny. My friends, like much of the world, had thoughts and feelings.

The question at the heart of their debate: Might it be more impressive, important, and sustainable to celebrate when an athlete listens to the requests of their body? When they respect its limits? When they choose to preserve and love it? The reasonable and resounding opinion: Yes. 

The list of major injuries Vonn has suffered at the hands of her sport is long. Broken knee, broken ankle, broken leg, broken arm. Two torn ACLs, a torn LCL. She has fame, she’s had glory, she must have money. All of which cannot be said for plenty of athletes who have suffered even more. So, watching now, it is hard not to ask: Why?