Lindsey Vonn walked off and was OK after crashing into netting in her first World Cup downhill of the Olympic season in Lake Louise, Alberta, on Friday, according to the U.S. Ski Team.
Vonn was leading after every time interval before doing the splits, falling and barreling through three rows of nets near the finish line, causing a large gasp from the crowd at the bottom of the course.
After a few minutes, she was extracted from the netting and skied down to the finish line.
Vonn was possibly en route to her 78th World Cup win. She’s chasing Ingemar Stenmark‘s career record of 86 victories.
Instead, Austrian Cornelia Huetter won. U.S. Olympic slalom champion Mikaela Shiffrin was third, marking her first World Cup downhill podium. More on Shiffrin here.
Vonn was sore and declined interviews, according to NBCSN.
It was the latest crash in a career filled with spills for Vonn, who seeks in February to become the oldest female Olympic Alpine medalist at 33.
World Cup racing in Lake Louise continues with another downhill Saturday (2:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app).
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Well that hurt... had a nice lead the whole way down but caught my inside ski. That’s ski racing though! I’ll be sore tomorrow but will rest up tonight and barring anything major I will be racing. Can’t keep me down! Congrats on the podium today too👏🏻 https://t.co/Kh0n4UGEkr
— lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) December 1, 2017
“You better make friends with pain because it’ll be around your whole life.” -my great grandma...Good thing we are BFFs #NoPainNoGain
— lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) December 2, 2017
