Lindsey Vonn Questionable for Olympics
After a February 2 crash during a training run in Austria that resulted in an injured shin, Lindsey Vonn’s amount of participation in the Olympics is still uncertain. While her trainers feel that she is doing much better, and she herself said that with the aid of numbing creams and pain killers that she is able to train, it’s anyone’s guess if she’ll be able to compete at her full potential during the five events she is supposed to be in.
Vonn has been extremely popular going into these winter games. Often compared to Michael Phelps, who won all eight events he competed in during the 2008 summer games, Vonn is a skiing star who is expected to win the gold in at least three of her five events, if not all of them. Vonn’s first scheduled race, the super combined, is on Sunday, February 14.
Vonn’s injury occurred during a training exercise in Austria on a track designed to mimic the difficult conditions that the athletes will encounter during the Olympics. The track was injected with water and froze, to make it harder and more slippery, traits that Vonn and other skiers and coaches have criticized due to the number of injuries that have occurred as a result of that type of track construction. As Vonn was turning left, her right leg slipped out and despite an attempt to correct it, twisted under her and she toppled over the front of her skis, smashing her skin against the front of her boot. Thankfully, the injury only affected the muscle in her shin and not the bone, but she wasn’t able to walk for 2 days after, and now the sore spot rests right where her boot comes into contact with her leg. It is the type of injury that she’ll notice every second she is on the slopes.
Vonn is slated to begin competing on Sunday, but she may have to sit the first couple of races out to let her injury heal more. Her next big events after Sunday are the downhill competition on Wednesday, followed by the Super-G three days later.
Right now, she’s got an entire country rooting for her to get better and compete, which has got to be weighing heavily when she can barely put pressure on the legs she’s trusting to get her down the mountain in one piece, and in gold medal time.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/sports/olympics/12vonn.html