U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn, the two-time reigning World Cup champion and a contender for multiple medals in the Winter Olympics, has a serious shin injury and may not be able to compete, she said Wednesday.
"I'm sitting here today questioning whether, you know, I'll be even able to ski," Vonn said at a news conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the games open Friday. She injured it during a training run in Austria Feb. 3, she said.
When asked directly whether the injury could force her to miss the games, Vonn replied, "Yeah, that's a possibility."
As the world's leading Alpine skier, Vonn is one of the stars of the U.S. Olympic team, and the games had been shaping up as a showcase for her.
Vonn said she hadn't skied since the injury. "It's probably the worst place that you can have an injury. There's no way around it. You feel it in every turn," she said.
"When I tried my boot on, I was just standing there in the hotel room barely flexing forward, and it was excruciatingly painful," Vonn told NBC's Today program in an interview that aired Wednesday. "I've got to try to ski downhill at 75-80 miles an hour with a lot of forces pushed up against my shin."
Vonn already has won nine World Cup races this season — including her last race, a Super G Jan. 31 at St. Moritz. She is slated to compete in all five women's Alpine events and was considered a favorite in the Super G and downhill.
The bruising covers about a 6-inch swath of her lower right leg, Vonn said, but she refused to get any X-rays to check whether she broke a bone because she didn't want to know.
She described her mind-set as "very emotional, very scared — not the positive way you want to be starting the Olympics."
The injury marked fresh bad luck for Vonn in Olympic competitions. At the 2006 Turin Olympics, she was hospitalized after a spill in downhill training, which bruised her back. She raced again less than two days later, but finished eighth.
This season, in late December, she lost control during a World Cup giant slalom in Austria, thudded to the ground and worried she had broken her left wrist. It turned out it was a bad bruise, but Vonn was right back out there racing in a slalom the next morning, wearing a brace to protect the tender arm. Less than two weeks later, she was stringing together a three-race winning streak.
Earlier that month, Vonn's knee slammed into her chin as she sped down a downhill in Lake Louise, Alberta, making her teeth chomp on her tongue, causing blood to pour out of a corner of her mouth as she crossed the finish line.
From NPR staff and wire service reports
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