Sawt Falasteen - Injured Vonn takes crucial step towards Olympic medal dream

Skiing with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, Vonn clocked a time of 1min 40.33sec in the American's first official run in Cortina d'Ampezzo, which was delayed for well over an hour due to fog hanging over the Olimpia delle Tofane piste.

Asked by reporters if everything was "all good", Vonn responded simply "yeah".

Vonn had been scheduled to take part in Thursday's training run which was cancelled due to heavy snowfall, and on Friday she was forced to wait for her go as fog swept onto the middle section of piste even as bright sunshine shone at the finish line.

The 41-year-old entertained her teammates by singing along to a song by American RnB star Usher, while the Swiss team, including reigning downhill Olympic champion Corinne Suter, passed the time by playing Yahtzee.

Assuming her knee holds up, Vonn will be able to go for her fourth Olympic medal when she approaches the starting gate for Sunday's final of the downhill, the discipline in which she won her sole Olympic gold in 2010.

Skiers need to complete one training run in order to compete in the final, with one more session scheduled for Saturday morning.

The biggest star at these Games dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when she revealed the extent of the injury she suffered during a heavy crash in a World Cup downhill race in Crans Montana a week ago.

- Hot form -

She had been in hot form this season, her second since making an astonishing return from retirement in November 2024 following surgery to partially replace her right knee earlier that year.

Vonn has finished on the podium in every World Cup downhill race this season, including two victories in St. Moritz and Zauchensee, and has claimed two more top-three finishes in the super-G.

Federica Brignone was the first to get all the way down the piste on Friday, with a time of 1min 40.66sec as she goes for a first Olympic gold after coming back from a double leg break just in time to compete.

The giant slalom world champion returned to competition less than three weeks before the start of the women's alpine skiing events, and her comeback would have been an even bigger story had Vonn's injury not dominated the final few days before the Olympics.

"Some things were good, was okay, some things was so-so," said the 35-year-old.

"For sure I'm trying to recover my leg, because after skiing it's always swollen and a bit painful.

"I'm working on my confidence when I'm skiing, because it's the thing that I'm still missing."

With Vonn's injury casting doubts over her ability to win a medal, Brignone's compatriot Sofia Goggia should be one of the other speed specialists ready to snatch gold.

The Bergamo native, who won gold and silver in the downhill at the last two Olympics, swooshed down a familiar slope 0.22sec faster than Vonn.

Q.Najjar--SF-PST