Lindsey Vonn’s Olympic comeback ended with a crash on Sunday, but while the skiing legend was going through a terrible ordeal after suffering a fractured leg, she had a teammate in mind.
According to Vonn’s coach, Aksel Lund Svindal, the 41-year-old Vonn was eager to send a congratulatory message to Breezy Johnson before being airlifted off the mountain by helicopter.
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In an Instagram post on Monday, Svindal praised Vonn’s “bravery” and character” while revealing Vonn’s support for Johnson.
“Lindsey. You’re incredibly brave. You inspire people that follow your journey and us that work closely with you every day. Yesterday was a tough day on the mountain. For everyone, but most of all for you. Still something happened that I think says everything. ‘Tell Breezy congrats and good job’. Your teammate was in the lead, and that’s the message you wanted the US skiteam coaches to remember before you got airlifted to the hospital. Real character shows up in the hard moments.”
Johnson beat Germany’s Emma Aicher by just four hundredths of a second with a time of 1:36.10 to capture her first Olympic gold medal nearly a year after she became a World Champion in the event.
In addition to the joy of winning gold, Johnson also felt the emotions of watching Vonn crash and get airlifted from the Tofane slope at Cortina d’Ampezzo. While waiting through a 30-minute delay and for the rest of the competition to finish, she could be seen tearing up several times.
“The work that we put in, the careers, my heart aches for her. It’s a tough road, and it’s a tough sport,” Johnson said Sunday. “That’s the beauty and the madness of it, that it can hurt you so badly, but you keep coming back for more. “
I don’t have anything except that her coach said she was cheering for me in the helicopter. I hope for the best for her. I hope that it’s not too bad. My heart aches for her. It’s such a brutal sport sometimes.”
Johnson knows what Vonn has gone through. She tore her ACL in 2018, causing her to miss the entire 2019 season. Then in June of that year she tore the PCL and MCL in her left knee during training. Preparations for the 2022 Olympics in Beijing further interrupted by a pandemic.
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A month before the the Beijing Games Johnson suffered a knee injury and was forced to withdraw.
Vonn underwent two operations to stabilize her fractured left leg, according to Reuters. The skiing legend was flown to Treviso’s Ca’ Foncello Hospital for care a little over a week after she ruptured the ACL in her left knee. The procedures were done to prevent complications that are tied to swelling and blood flow.
Johnson, meanwhile, isn’t done skiing in Milan. She is paired with Mikaela Shiffrin in Tuesday’s women’s team combined, which is debuting in these Olympics. The event features teams with one downhill skier and one slalom skier. Johnson will handle downhill duties, while Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and eight-time World Champion, will be part of the slalom.
