Lindsey Vonn will race the Olympic downhill on Sunday at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, nine days after rupturing the ACL in her left knee. She posted the third-fastest time in Saturday’s training run, clocking 1:38.28 and finishing 0.37 seconds behind teammate and reigning world champion Breezy Johnson. The 41-year-old pumped her fist at the finish line.
Vonn’s fifth and final Olympic Games will unfold across as many as three events, though the torn ACL makes each one a day-by-day decision.
Lindsey Vonn’s Full 2026 Olympic Schedule and How to Watch
All of Vonn’s events take place at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre on the Olympia delle Tofane slope, a course where she owns a record 12 World Cup victories.
- Women’s Downhill: Sunday, Feb. 8 at 5:30 a.m. ET (USA Network, Peacock)
- Women’s Team Combined: Tuesday, Feb. 10 (Peacock, NBCOlympics.com)
- Women’s Super-G: Thursday, Feb. 12 at 5:30 a.m. ET (USA Network, Peacock)
The downhill is locked in. Beyond that, Vonn told reporters her participation hinges on feel. “My goal is, obviously, right now the downhill,” she said on Feb. 3. “I have to see how my knee feels. If it’s stable and I feel confident, I’ll continue to race.” When pressed on the super-G and team combined, she was direct: “I can’t tell you that answer until I actually ski 85 miles an hour.”
On our way to work! Course looks good today, snow is a lot more firm. Should run quite a bit faster. Because of that, I’ve decided to start in the training run today. See you out there 💃🏼💪🏻 pic.twitter.com/ainVCdKJ8w
— lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) February 7, 2026
All women’s alpine events air on NBC, USA Network, or stream on Peacock and NBCOlympics.com. Peacock carries every Olympic event live, with no free trial currently available.
What the Training Runs Tell Us About Vonn’s Medal Chances
Two sessions on the Olympic course suggest Vonn’s chances are more complicated than the torn ACL headline implies. On Friday, she posted the 11th-fastest time in her first run since the Jan. 30 crash in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. She looked cautious, missed a gate, and floated outside the course line at one point.
Saturday was different. Vonn dropped more than two seconds off her Friday time and finished third overall. Her coach, Aksel Lund Svindal, the 2018 Olympic downhill champion, didn’t mince words: “This is as ready as she will be, and I believe that she has a good chance at being top 3.”
Svindal also flagged a mechanical concern. Vonn has been favoring her right leg on jump landings, which throws off her balance through compressions. “It’s the landings that hurt the most,” he said. The brace covering her left knee creates a further aerodynamic penalty that training times alone can’t account for.
MORE: What Is ‘AIN’ in the Olympics?
The competitive field is stacked. Italy’s Sofia Goggia, the 2018 gold medalist, knows this course and carries home crowd energy. Germany’s Kira Weidle-Winkelmann sits third in the discipline rankings. Johnson led Saturday’s training.
Vonn won two World Cup races this season and made the podium in all five downhills before Crans-Montana. She leads the FIS downhill standings. Before Jan. 30, she was the best downhill skier in the world.
“I haven’t cried. I haven’t deviated from my plan,” Vonn told reporters Tuesday. “Normally, in the past, there’s always a moment where you break down and you realize the severity of things and that your dreams are slipping through your fingers. But I didn’t have that this time. I’m not letting this slip through my fingers.”
If she medals Sunday, she’d become the oldest alpine skier to do so, breaking her own record from the 2018 PyeongChang Games. Svindal said the conversation in camp has shifted entirely. “Instead of talking about how the knee is feeling all the time, we can have conversations about what line to choose, how do we do this turn, how long is the jump. I’m not worrying about what happened last week.”
Sunday at 5:30 a.m. ET, Vonn drops into the start gate on the course where she first reached a World Cup podium as a teenager in 2004. Cortina pulled her back one last time.
