Lindsey Vonn’s complex tibia fracture at the Olympics: What to know about the injury

Legendary American skier Lindsey Vonn suffered a complex tibia fracture in her left leg in a crash just 13 seconds into her race on Sunday, requiring her to be airlifted from the track and undergo multiple surgeries. She said she was simply “five inches too tight” on her line, clipping a gate that caused her crash.

“While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets,” Vonn said Monday on Instagram. “Standing in the starting gate Sunday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget.”

Lying on the snow, Vonn could be heard yelling and writhing in pain for multiple minutes before medical personnel could reach her.

Vonn entered the Winter Olympics with a torn ACL in the same leg, but later said there was no relation between the injuries.

Dr. Kevin Farmer, an orthopedic surgeon and the chief of the sports medicine division at the University of Florida, said that while a torn ACL could potentially cause a crash that in turn causes a tibia fracture through blunt force, these injuries appear separate.

“Where the ACL plays a role is your risk of crashing or falling, but it looks like the crash was simply just kind of getting too close to the flag,” Farmer told The Athletic. “So the injury itself, the fracture itself, would not be related to the ACL.”

What is a complex tibia fracture?

The tibia is a long bone, the second longest in the body, in the leg that spans from the ankle to the knee. It’s also known as the shin bone, with the smaller fibula bone behind it often referred to as the calf bone.

According to Farmer, there are different types of tibia fractures. A tibia shaft fracture through the middle of the bone is surgically corrected by inserting a titanium rod for stabilization during healing. However, if it is a proximal fracture, just below the knee joint, or a pilon fracture just above the ankle, then the process becomes more complicated.

In either of those cases, surgical correction would “entail having to go in and kind of put the pieces back together to make sure the joint is as normal as possible,” Farmer said.

According to Yale Medicine, a fracture is considered “complex” when the bone breaks into several pieces, damaging the soft tissues surrounding the shin.

How common are complex tibia fractures?

These injuries are commonly caused by high-speed collisions such as motorcycle accidents. Enough force is needed to shatter the bone in several different places for it to be labeled “complex.”

“They are more common in high energy injuries,” Farmer said. “So motor vehicle accidents, falls, those kind of things. Obviously, downhill skiing is pretty high velocity, so certainly these can happen.”

If the fracture was at either of the joints, then the repair becomes a two-step process. First it has to be stabilized using a “external fixator,” a device placed around the injury in which pins and wires are inserted and run from outside the body through the bone and back out to a device to keep it stable for about a week until swelling reduces. Then, there is a secondary operation to go in and actually repair the joint and bone from the fractures.

What is next for Lindsey Vonn?

Farmer said that recovery from the second procedure takes about six months.

Vonn, 41, was the oldest woman to ever compete in Alpine racing in Winter Olympics History. She has yet to explicitly announce a retirement from the sport, or that Milan-Cortina was going to be her last ride officially. However, when she announced her comeback in 2024, she told People Magazine her motivations were to finish her career strong, after a crash ended it prematurely in 2019.

“I built an amazing life and was really happy in retirement,” she told People. “But I didn’t finish my career the way I wanted to. I was limping away when I wanted to finish strong.”

As she left the track this time, she gave poignant parting words in her Monday statement.

“I tried. I dreamt. I jumped.” Vonn wrote. “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.”