Broken left femur I believe. possibly compound but of that I'm not sure.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously some of the rotation was from clipping the gate but it did look like she deliberately put more into it to land the skis traverse, is that because landing at for example 45 degrees on a steep section like that has potential for even worse injuries?
I know when im going to bail on a park jump I do this with skis but I kick them out infront and try to land on side of my thigh, totally different speeds though obviously.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
gixxerniknik wrote:
Broken left femur I believe. possibly compound but of that I'm not sure.
That's bad news. If that's the case she may as well have her ACL reconstructed as well because her season's done.
There's no question she's still competitive so if she's mad enough to come back again next season then good luck to her. I'm rootin' for ya, Vonnie!
I saw that too. But read from italian press it was the femur. Whatever, that's not as bad as it could be.
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Lower leg is what I'd expect and it's probably a by-product of the brace. The brace is secured around 5 inches below the knee so it changes the flex point of the leg laterally.
It's almost as broad as it's long, if she hadn't been wearing the brace she'd probably have done her ACL anyway as her skis didn't release. I'm just glad that there's no issue with her reconstructed right knee because if both knees were done that surely would be the end of her career.
I'm pretty sure a broken tib/fib is much easier to come back from than a broken femur so fingers crossed!
After all it is free
After all it is free
@Je suis un Skieur, I'd wondered about the combined effect of the brace and the unreleased ski, as she was thrown every which way. Ouch.
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@KSH, Just seems sadly logical to me. In football, rugby, hockey whatever, any lateral impact on the lower leg is absorbed along the full length of the tibia by it being able to flex sideways, with the ankle and knee joints allowing further mitigation of the impact.
If you're a skier then the boot blocks about the lower 7 inches above the ankle from being able to flex and the knee brace blocks the top 4-5 inches. That means that all lateral impact forces are going to go through the remaining unprotected 3-4 inches of the tibia between the boot and the brace instead of being distributed along the full length and there's little help in absorption from the ankle and knee joints because they're both locked from lateral movement by the equipment.
Hardly surprising if the tibia shatters under those circumstances.
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@Je suis un Skieur, completely logical and gives me a horrible feeling in my tummy.
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She can hopefully look forward to another 40 or 50 years of life. It might be good if she decided to increase her chances of staying independently mobile for most, if not all, those years. Another comeback, when you’re already the greatest female downhill ski racer ever, might not be altogether wise
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@PeakyB, I cannot imagine her attempting another comeback after this. At least not in skiing.
I have no doubt that we have not heard the last of her though!
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@Je suis un Skieur, makes sense. Can't imagine she won't have a recon done, ASAP, given all publicly known factors. Even ex-WC racing she does a lot of skiing and ski training.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@Steilhang, that'll be because you're not an olympic downhiller?
Brutal injury and spectacle...
Such a shame Vonn never got to the finish line and ended her career in such horrific manner.
Cant help but feel she cant have been mentally 100% after the ACL injury last week.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@under a new name, indeed. I linked it yesterday.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Haggis_Trap wrote:
Cant help but feel she cant have been mentally 100% after the ACL injury last week.
Correct, any one who said the crash isn't related to the ACL injury is not considering the full picture.
This is the absolute top level of the sport - fractions of percent matter in terms of fitness and focus.
No matter how good she is, part of her focus was consumed with managing that injury, picking the best line down the course that she could achieve within the constraint of her injury. She pushed the limits and crashed.
I wish her a speedy recovery, I probably would have given it a shot as well.
@NoMapNoCompass, ...not sure I agree...and one key reason is Loic Bruni.
Bruni (the monster athletic title defender0 and Goldstone (the brilliant young upstart) were down to the line in the final of the DH World Cup. In the morning, Bruni took a minor fall but he, like many muscle-bound athletes, is prone to muscle hematoma and his thigh was profoundly compromised. His failure to show at the gate at Mt St Anne for the FINAL run of the day - huge pressure, huge expectation - was extraordinary and unprecedented in recent competition. The precise story of those minutes is extraordinary, and the DH community's respect for Bruni's professionalism and his emotional strength in making that decision just grew and grew in the following days and weeks. He walked away and will likely come back this season stronger, faster, more determined, more strategic. Good for him, good for his body, good for the sport.
First of all, thank you for reaching out or sending me some support, I had a lot of wholesome messages following what was for me a heartbreaking last day of the season.
Massive respect and congratulations to the fresh World Cup Champion Jackson Goldstone , man it’s been fun this year battling all the way to the wire. You’re a true legend.
Bruni: '...To make it simple, I wasn’t fit to race on Saturday due to a crash in the morning, no one really saw it because it wasn’t in a key section or whatever.
I couldn’t accept what was happening to me so I did everything to make it to the start knowing deep down it was over. In the end I made the decision to not drop in for my run. I just couldn’t.
The time I took to get back to the gondola, regroup, and make my way down, the podium was happening/ending.
I wouldn’t miss a podium for anything, by respect and by pride. Second overall after 10 rounds is something I’m proud of and I would have loved to get up there with Jackson and Luca. I went straight to the medics, then hospital, spent all night there.
My crew packed my bags as my woman at home was starting to get into labour, my team manager picked me up at 10 and we started driving to Montreal airport, all of that with a freaking sore leg. Took the first flight back home to try and make it for the delivery.
Landed, left the bags at the airport and went straight to the hospital where I was needed.
It was heartbreaking for me to miss out on the championship and the amazing vibe there was on the hill. I know I had what it took to win but I simply paid an immense price for a silly mistake.
What really matters in the end, is that I could be with Caro to welcome our baby boy...'
In terms of mental strength, professional strategy and resolve it is salutary. He is indeed SuperBruni.
and if you are interested in the speed and precision and focus of DH watch this or anything else from the Sleeper Collective. Mental.
Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would. It wasn’t a story book ending or a fairy tail, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it. Because in Downhill ski racing the difference between a strategic line and a catastrophic injury can be as small as 5 inches.
I was simply 5 inches too tight on my line when my right arm hooked inside of the gate, twisting me and resulted in my crash. My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever.
Unfortunately, I sustained a complex tibia fracture that is currently stable but will require multiple surgeries to fix properly.
While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets. Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself. I also knew that racing was a risk. It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport.
And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life. We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is the also the beauty of life; we can try.
I tried. I dreamt. I jumped.
I hope if you take away anything from my journey it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying.
I believe in you, just as you believed in me.
LV
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@Tubaski, thank you. That's quite poetic. Brave lady, I hope she heals well.
After all it is free
After all it is free
I'm not sure I completely buy the "no regrets" thing, at some level I'm sure she does have some...but I think they'd have been much bigger regrets had she not raced, especially after training successfully. Going down swinging for the fences is the champion's way out IMO, and I have even more respect for her as a result....wish she'd lose the stupid Mickey Mouse hat though
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"My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever."
Is also obviously a ridiculous, albeit expected thing to say. There is no way she can objectively say that given that both in practice and race she was very obviously protecting her left leg and skiing differently than she normally does.
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NoMapNoCompass wrote:
"My ACL and past injuries had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever."
Is also obviously a ridiculous, albeit expected thing to say. There is no way she can objectively say that given that both in practice and race she was very obviously protecting her left leg and skiing differently than she normally does.
Unlike you, she knows what was going through her mind, and why she chose the line hse did.
Please don't call her a liar.
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@alex_heney, hear, hear. I'm really bored with these mind-reading armchair experts.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
KSH wrote:
@alex_heney, hear, hear. I'm really bored with these mind-reading armchair experts.
@KSH, best you stay clear of the t'interweb entirely then!
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Hate to break it to you, everyone lies
Especially in professional sport
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
NoMapNoCompass wrote:
she was very obviously protecting her left leg and skiing differently than she normally does.
Was she though? For 13 seconds? If you are an elite ski coach, just say so and ignore the rest of this post.
As a casual watcher of ski racing, that looked as though she knew that Johnson's time looked very strong, and Aicher was 0.04 behind. If she was going for gold it had to be high risk. She took the risk because that is how she has always approached racing. I don't recall any of the skiers that went before getting close to that gate but I wasn't paying attention to it before the accident. Did she see a risky line that no one else wanted to ski?
I'm sure we can all argue with "whatsoever": of course the injury had a bearing on the accident, but she didn't hit that gate because she was favouring her outside leg.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@tsgsh, absolutely. She took a risky line and was 12cm too far right. It was a mistake that had nothing to do with her leg or her age or her mental state.
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Poster: A snowHead
@NoMapNoCompass, she was clearly protecting her left leg in the race? I'm impressed that you deduced that from the one proper left footed turn, which of the racers on the world cup do you coach?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Regardless of opinions / debates on whether or not she should have raced, I think we can all agree that she is an absolute warrior and wish her all the best in what will be a lengthy recovery.
Given her form pre Olympics, I guess we cant rule out another season !
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
The point is that she more than likely took a riskier line because she knew that that she was going to lose time elsewhere on the course on account of her injury.
To say that her injury was not inhibiting her in any way during the race is ludicrous when this clearly was the case in the practice run.
The commentary in this thread has gone from asking if it is wise to race with a fully ruptured ACL to denying that the same injury would have had any effect on her performance in the race and subsequent crash!
The commentary in this thread has gone from asking if it is wise to race with a fully ruptured ACL to denying that the same injury would have had any effect on her performance in the race and subsequent crash!
Whereas you are saying that it was "obvious" that she was favouring her injured leg and that caused her to crash because you don't believe that she could race at the required level. Out of you and her, I know who I believe. I'll continue to take "whatsoever" with a pinch of salt: I'm sure she said it because she was already fed up of people telling her online that the ACL injury directly caused the crash.
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Some nonsense on here. The high line on that gate is the winning line. LV has previously won 6 world cup downhills on that course which is the record there and the second highest single course downhill race wins total of all time. The first is her own record at Lake Louise with a quite ridiculous 14 wins.
It was obvious from the previous runners that you needed to be high on that gate for a good time and with 6 previous victories, LV knows that better than anyone.
After all it is free
After all it is free
NoMapNoCompass wrote:
The point is that she more than likely took a riskier line because she knew that that she was going to lose time elsewhere on the course on account of her injury.
Or she wanted to win
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@Je suis un Skieur, indeed. Nothing else matters to her.
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hmmm .... she HAS won - crashing out this way or crossing the line first, both are wins, but differently.
Massive media coverage. As much or more than winning. And that's not cynical. Mentioned on Today programme this morning - a win would not have been.
She makes her money from endorsements and books - particularly book sales. She has climbed back to top competitive level, and although she would have wanted to complete and win in Olympics, this outcome - despite huge personal cost regarding injury, which is indeed nasty - just consolidates 'the legend'. A win either way.
After the nature of the injury she had at CransM, many athletes I know would not have competed. Others would. Greg Minnaar would have been 'on' - he has competed with some incredible injuries. Others - 'Ponpom' (Myriam Nicole) would not - she takes time out and only returns to competition when 100%.
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