Lindsey Vonn has ninth operation on left leg but keeps door open to skiing return

Lindsey Vonn has undergone a ninth operation on her left leg, but the American skier says she is not ready to consider ending her career and wants to return to the slopes before deciding what comes next.

The 42-year-old said in a video recorded before the procedure that it had been planned for some time. “This will be my ninth operation and I pray it will be the last,” she said, adding that what happened during surgery could still change the outcome.

Vonn tore a ligament in February but went on to compete at the Winter Olympics in Italy, where she crashed and suffered a complicated leg fracture. She was recently named in the World Cup squad for the season, despite the operation having been scheduled.

“I don’t want to close that door,” she said of retirement. “I think I need to be 100 per cent fit, and I want to get back on the mountain before I can make a judgement.”

Vonn has won 84 World Cup races. In an earlier account of her recovery, she said doctors expected her ACL injury to require a further six to nine months of recovery. Her previous update on the ninth operation described the procedure as following eight earlier operations since her Olympic crash.