Lindsey Vonn’s legendary skiing career should be over after she broke her leg during a crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics — at least, according to her dad.
“She’s 41 years old and this is the end of her career,” Vonn’s father, Alan Kildow, told The Associated Press on Monday, February 9. “There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it.”
Kildow has been by his daughter’s side in an Italian hospital after she broke her leg just 13 seconds into the women’s downhill event on Sunday, February 8.
“She’s a very strong individual,” Kildow said of his daughter. “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 said three of Vonn’s four siblings — one brother and both of her sisters — are also in Italy.
“She has somebody with her — or multiple people with her — at all times,” he explained. “We’ll have people here as long as she’s here.”
Kildow and Vonn don’t share a last name after Vonn got married to 2002 Olympian and former U.S. Ski Team athlete Thomas Vonn in 2017. The couple announced they were getting divorced in November 2011, though Vonn held onto her ex husband’s surname.
Vonn underwent surgery on Sunday after being airlifted off the course by helicopter bringing a tragic end to her miraculous Olympics return.
“It can be dramatic and traumatic. You’re just horrified at what those kinds of impacts have,” said Kildow, a former ski racer himself. “You can go into a shock, an emotional psychological shock. Because it’s difficult to just accept what’s happened. But she’s well cared for.”
Kildow added, “The U.S. Ski team [has] a very, very top-notch doctor with her and she is being very well cared for here in Italy.”
Vonn was competing with a completely torn ACL, which she suffered during a World Cup crash in Switzerland on January 30.
“What happened to her had nothing to do with the ACL issue on her left leg. Nothing,” Kildow said of the crash on Sunday. “She had demonstrated that she was able to function at a very high level with the two downhill training runs.
He added that Vonn “had been cleared by high level physicians to ski.”
Kildow said that not only will his daughter’s injury prevent her from competing again in this year’s Olympics, she also won’t be able to support Team USA in person.
“She’s not in that kind of situation,” he said. “She will be going home at an appropriate point in time.”
Vonn’s sister Karin Kidlow watched Sunday’s crash in person, telling NBC News it was “the last thing we wanted to see.”
“It happened quick. So when that happens you’re just immediately hoping she’s OK,” Karin said. “It was scary because when you start to see the stretchers being put out, that is not a good sign.”
Karin added, “I know she put her whole heart into it and sometimes things happen.”
