Vonn was taking a huge risk by competing on Sunday having suffered the ACL injury in Switzerland in the last World Cup race before the Games but was determined to take to the course for her favoured event.

Stunned spectators applauded towards the helicopter as it carried her away from the piste which has brought her so much success in the past - with 12 of her 84 World Cup wins coming here.

Vonn had been unsure what her knee was capable of withstanding but had targeted the downhill as her favoured event while also being entered in the super-G and team events.

It is now unlikely she will compete in any of those, meaning her Olympic career has almost certainly come to a devastating end.

Vonn had appeared relaxed in the training runs and in the morning before the race. Her coach Aksel Lund Svindal said on Friday that he felt confident she could pull off something spectacular.

No stranger to a comeback, Vonn retired from the sport in 2019 as the most decorated female skier at the time but had suffered several serious leg injuries.

She made a shock return to the sport in 2024 having had a partial knee replacement in her right knee.

Vonn was tipped for the podium in Cortina, competing at her fifth Olympics following a successful 2025-26 season, in which she reached the podium in all five races, winning two.

But this latest crash leaves a significant doubt over whether Vonn will ski competitively again.

Vonn knew the dangers of competing but showed defiance in a media conference earlier this week, and had even hit back at a doctor on social media who claimed the injury was "not a fresh tear".

She responded by saying her ACL is "100% torn" and had hoped to defy the odds by replicating the Olympic downhill gold medal she won in Vancouver in 2010.

Videos on social media had shown her training in the gym after she said she had no pain or swelling of the knee, while two smooth runs in the build-up to the race had given her, and her team and fans, confidence.

Four-time British Olympian Chemmy Alcott was emotional on BBC coverage and said she "never believed" it would end in this way.

"What we saw [is] that the top of the piste is really hard for a fit athlete. It is brutal, think about her family, her team and herself," she said.

"We have to be realistic - the risk was really high, the risk she takes when she falls will double that. Her body will not be able to take that."

Alcott added that the long delay would also mean the snow on the piste would begin to melt in the midday sun, meaning any racer who followed Vonn would struggle to match Johnson's time.

The crash surely unsettled the rest of the field, too, and Andorra's Cande Moreno was also airlifted off the piste after crashing into a gate.