Legendary Olympic snowboarder Shaun White — who is commentating the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony on NBC — said he hopes United States skier Lindsey Vonn will be able to recover for this year’s games.
“She’s a legend in her sport, and she has nothing to prove,” White said on the broadcast. “But I just love the fact that she’s bringing that intensity to potentially her last Olympics.”
White added that he believes if there’s anyone who can make such a quick comeback to competition, Vonn would be the one to do it.
“You feel for her,” he added. “She’s had trouble with her knees before. She’s had surgeries to correct those injuries, and boom, another injury to the knee. But if anyone can do it, I feel that Lindsey can.”
White was teammates with Vonn on the U.S. team for the 2006, 2010 and 2018 Winter Olympic games.
Just one week after Vonn ruptured her ACL during a World cup race in Switzerland, the 2010 Olympic gold medalist is already back and completing training runs on Friday.
In her first training run, Vonn was able to complete all activities without any incidents, outside of a Peacock announcer noting a “hard landing” toward the end of her run.
“That’s a big box ticked for Lindsey Vonn,” the announcer said.
Following the run, Vonn told an AP reporter that she believed that it went well, with the 41-year-old finishing in 1:40:33, which placed her 11th out of 45 competitors.
“She was smart. She didn’t go all in,” Aksel Lund Svindal, former Olympic champion of Norway and now one of Vonn’s personal coaches, told AP. “She made a mistake on the bottom, but the rest looked like just good skiing, but no big risk.
“And to me it looked symmetrical.”
On Friday morning, Vonn also revealed that her ACL is “100% gone” in a post on social media in response to speculation of the state of her knee before the injury.
“Lol thanks doc,” Vonn posted to X. “My ACL was fully functioning until last Friday. Just because it seems impossible to you doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
“And yes, my ACL is 100% ruptured. Not 80% or 50%. It’s 100% gone.”
