Lindsey Vonn's father has declared that the American ski star will no longer race after breaking her leg at the Winter Olympics. Alan Kildow told The Associated Press: “She's 41 years old and this is the end of her career. There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it.”
Kildow and Vonn's family – including her brother and two sisters – have been with her at a hospital in Treviso following her fall and helicopter evacuation from the course in Cortina on Sunday. The hospital released a statement late Sunday saying Vonn had undergone surgery on her left leg, and the U.S. Ski Team said she was in stable condition.
Kildow declined to give details of Vonn's injuries but spoke about her emotional state. “She's a very strong individual,” he said. “She knows physical pain and she understands the circumstances that she finds herself in. And she's able to handle it. Better than I expected. She's a very, very strong person. And so I think she's handling it real well.”
A former ski racer who taught his daughter to race, Kildow said he slept in her hospital room overnight. “She has somebody with her – or multiple people with her – at all times. We'll have people here as long as she's here,” he added.
Kildow and the rest of Vonn's family watched the crash from the finish area. “First, the shock and the horror of the whole thing, seeing a crash like that,” he recalled. “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. But she's well cared for… and the USOC and the U.S. Ski team have a very, very top-notch doctor with her and she is being very well cared for here in Italy.”
