“I have one more surgery to remove the metal and replace my (anterior cruciate ligament) ACL,” the 2010 Olympic downhill champion said, noting that she would need a long recovery period after that.
“Once I get my ACL fixed, it’s another six months, so I’ll have to wait at least a year and a half before I can get back to 100% just training in the gym,” she added.
Vonn was racing at the Cortina Olympics nine days after rupturing ligaments in his left knee when he crashed into a gate and crashed 13 seconds into the descent.
She was airlifted from the piste and diagnosed with a compound tibial fracture in her left leg.
“I’m still in survival mode, I just want to get through this phase and be able to evaluate where I am in my life,” said Vonn, who won two world titles in 2009.
“I don’t want to make a decision now because it would be rash and probably too emotional and I don’t want to make a mistake.”
Vonn, who has 84 World Cup wins and is second on the all-time women’s list behind fellow American Mikaela Shiffrin, suffered several serious leg injuries before retiring from the sport for the first time in 2019.
After undergoing partial right knee replacement surgery, he announced his return to the Shock in 2024.
Vonn was expected to medal at her fifth and final Olympics, and competed despite suffering an ACL injury in Switzerland in her final World Cup race before the Olympics.
She described her injury at the Olympics as “very different” from her previous injuries in terms of “the severity of the injury and the understanding that I may have lost my leg and how bad things were.”
She added: “I can handle a lot of pain, but this was so extreme. I wasn’t even in a world of pain I had experienced before.”
