Lindsey Vonn arrives in Vancouver with a smile ... and an injury
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The United States Ski Team revealed in a Wednesday morning e-mail that Lindsey Vonn, America’s top medal hope in Alpine skiing at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, injured her right shin during a training-run crash last week and will be competing in pain.
‘I for sure will be racing. I’m going to push through it,’ Vonn told Matt Lauer of NBC’s ‘Today’ show.
Vonn bruised her right shin while training for slalom. The 25-year-old World Cup champion will test her injury for the first time in Whistler on Thursday during her first downhill training run for Sunday’s first women’s Alpine event: the super combined.
Vonn is expected to be a medal contender in five events, although an injury to her left arm in late December might curtail her chances in three races involving slalom gates: the super combined, slalom and giant slalom.
Vonn will be a heavy favorite to win gold in downhill and super giant slalom. An injury during a downhill training run in Italy four years ago ruined her chances for a medal at the 2006 Turin Games.
‘I have to wait until the first training run on Thursday and go up there, put my skis on and see how it feels,’ Vonn said of her latest shin injury. ‘I’m thinking about how I can manage it so I can race well in all my disciplines. I don’t know if that means sitting out a training run to get some extra rest.’
Vonn should have more to say about the injury during a previously scheduled news conference Wednesday morning at the Main Press Center in Vancouver.