MILAN (AP) — The determination that fuels an athlete’s ascent to the Olympics can explain why they believe they’re capable of enormous feats — even when they’re injured.
Lindsey Vonn tore her left ACL but nine days later put on a brace and let it fly in the women’s downhill at the Milan Cortina Olympics. It ended badly, with Vonn crashing early in the race and breaking a bone in her left leg.
Other Winter Olympic athletes have faced hard decisions about whether to compete with serious injuries.
Here’s a look:
The 2010 Vancouver Games was the third Olympics for cross-country skier Petra Majdic of Slovenia. She had yet to win a medal. On the day of the women’s individual sprint classic, she slipped while on her warm-up lap before the qualification time trial and fell about 10 feet into a gully.
“I was starting to scream badly. With that scream, I start to feel really bad pain in my back,” she told the Olympic Channel. “Somehow I climbed out of that hole.”
Majdic powered through the qualification run and then saw a doctor, who gave her the OK to continue, she explained. She went back to the slopes and got through the quarterfinals and semifinals — and finished third in the final to take the bronze medal.
The pain was “killing me,” but she had told herself “do not come back to Slovenia without a medal.”
Majdic had to be helped onto the podium and was later hospitalized.
It turned out she had several broken ribs and a punctured lung, a further exam showed, according to Slovenia's state news agency.
Italian skier Sofia Goggia knows a bit about racing with an injured knee, too. She sustained a partially torn knee ligament less than a month before winning the women’s downhill silver medal at the 2022 Beijing Games.
Italy’s team had said Goggia also had a “minor fracture” in that leg and some tendon damage.
She had been told she needed to use crutches for at least 10 days after her crash. She gave it three — and then started preparing to race.
Goggia even fell on a practice run and told her coach “I don’t know if I can do this.” Ultimately, she came close to repeating as Olympic champion, after having won gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
On Sunday, Goggia added a bronze medal to her Olympic collection.
Philippe Marquis relied on messages like “Keep Fighting” and “What ACL” to stay motivated after tearing his right ACL during training in Utah a month before the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018. The Canadian moguls skier used a Sharpie to write the messages on his gloves. They included "Engage" and “Fire.”
The Quebec native finished 20th.
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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