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'This is the end': Father calls for Vonn to retire for good
AP •  February 10th, 2026 1:18 pm
If her dad has his way, Lindsey Vonn's racing career is over after the veteran's latest crash | Photo: AP
Lindsey Vonn's father says the American superstar will no longer race if he has any influence over her decision and that she will not return to the Winter Olympics after breaking her leg in the downhill over the weekend.
"She's 41 years old and this is the end of her career," Alan Kildow said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
"There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it."
The Vonn family have been with her while she is being treated at a hospital in Treviso following her fall and helicopter evacuation from the course in Cortina on Sunday.
Kildow declined to comment on details of Vonn's injuries, but the veteran of five Olympics took to social media to update her fans.
"Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would," Vonn said.
"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."
Kildow and the rest of Vonn's family watched the crash from the finish area with all of the other spectators.
"First, the shock and the horror of the whole thing, seeing a crash like that," Kildow said of what he felt watching the scene unfold.
"It can be dramatic and traumatic. You're just horrified at what those kinds of impacts have.
"You can go into a shock an emotional psychological shock ... because it's difficult to just accept what's happened. But she's well cared for."
Vonn raced the downhill despite tearing the ACL in her left knee nine days earlier in another crash.
US fans were left in shock after Lindsey Vonn's crash | Photo: AP
"What happened to her had nothing to do with the ACL issue on her left leg. Nothing," Kildow said.
"She had demonstrated that she was able to function at a very high level with the two downhill training runs … and she had been cleared by high level physicians to ski."
Vonn, who holds the record of 12 World Cup victories in Cortina, returned to the circuit last season after nearly six years of retirement and after a partial titanium replacement surgery in her right knee. She won two downhills and finished on the podium in seven of the eight World Cup races that she finished this season — and came fourth in the other one.
"She won 84 World Cup races. And not many people do that," Kildow added, referring to Vonn's victory total, which place her second on the all-time women's list behind teammate Mikaela Shiffrin's record 108 wins.
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