Lindsey Vonn wore a green dress and heels while attending the first day of the 2026 US Open, showing barely a trace of the devastating crash that ended her Olympic hopes earlier this year.
Vonn, 41, showed only a thin strip of bandaging on her left leg as she walked into the stadium on Sunday, August 30, six months after suffering a complex tibia fracture while competing at the Winter Olympics in Italy.
“I still have another surgery, so I’m trying to get as strong as possible,” Vonn told TNT Sports at the US Open. “And once I get my ACL, then I’ll have another long road ahead of me. But for now, I feel great, and I’m very thankful for that.”
She continued, “I’m hoping that I can have the [ACL] surgery in November, but it’ll be in the winter sometime, and then it’ll be another nine months until I’m fully recovered from that, so I can’t really look beyond that. I don’t really know what the future holds, but like I said, I’m just thankful for where I am right now.”
With Vonn still about a year away from complete recovery, she has repeatedly said she is undecided about her competitive future. For now, she’s just happy to be up and walking.
“I was in a wheelchair for so long. I was on crutches for so long,” Vonn told People in July. “It was honestly almost three and a half months that I was unable to walk unassisted. I got very emotional when I was able to walk on my own.”
Vonn previously let fans into her rehab process, sharing a video via Instagram.
“I knew one day I’d get here, just didn’t know how long it would take me…” she captioned the post this summer. “It took 5 months, but I’m finally here! Still a very long road ahead but my strength is coming back 💪🏻 (maybe more mentally than physically still but that’s not a bad thing ;).”
In April, she opened up to The Athletic about the hard work ahead.
“It’s a lot of rehab. Wake up at 7:30, breakfast at 8, 9 to 11 is rehab at my house,” she said at the time. “I have a little break, eat some food. Go to a hyperbaric chamber. Do about two hours with decompression in the hyperbaric, and then I come back and have a little break. And then usually work out from, like, 5 to 6:30, little break, shower, dinner.”
Vonn was at the US Open on Sunday to watch Novak Djokovic’s shocking loss to Mariano Navone in a match that lasted nearly five hours. She is also friends with Iga Świątek, who is playing on Monday, August 31.
“She is an incredibly warm person and over all these years, it has truly been a huge pleasure to get to know her better and better,” she said of Świątek, 25, in an interview with Polish outlet Przegląd Sportowy Onet. “I hope that this year I will be able to see her during the US Open. I will always cheer for her.”
