(CNN) -- It was the very first race of this year's
World Championships and Lindsey Vonn was confident of wresting back her
Super-G title. Just five seconds in, the story went off script, and Vonn
off course.
On the Schladming slopes
on an arctic Austrian February afternoon, the American downhill Olympic
champion's first jump on the course initially appeared to go to plan
but, as she landed, her weight seemed to shift too far forward and her right knee buckled virtually to a right angle beneath her.
She skidded off the track
and came to a rest 100 meters down the mountain, in a crumpled wreck in
the snow, clutching her knee, her face twisted in agony before the
rescue helicopter winched her up over the snow-dusted pine trees below,
taking her to begin the slow and agonizing recovery process.
She has been open in that
recovery process, tweeting pictures of the horrific state of her
blackened and swollen knee in the aftermath of her operation, keeping
her followers posted on the slow and steady nature of her recovery.
Photos: Ski champion Lindsey Vonn
Vonn and on: Lindsey's quest
Less than seven months
later in September, Vonn clipped back into her skis on the slopes of
Portillo, Chile, to test the reconstructed knee, insisting "I can't tell
which knee is injured" and that she was "skiing without fear."
Her plan is now to return
to competitive skiing at the World Cup meeting in Beaver Creek,
Colorado, from 29 November to 1 December.
Source: CNN.com
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