crashes

Skiing icon Vonn cried in anguish and pain after her awful fall high up the course days after sustaining an ACL injury.

Lindsey Vonn’s Winter Olympic dream ended in screams of pain after she crashed out of the women’s downhill, failing in her audacious bid to medal in her favoured discipline at the Milan-Cortina Games.

Vonn’s United States (USA) teammate and world champion Breezy Johnson won the race to claim gold on Sunday.

Germany’s Emma Aicher took the silver medal, 0.04 of a second slower, and Italy’s home ‌favourite Sofia Goggia had to settle for bronze, according to ‌provisional results.

Johnson’s Olympic title, ‌on Cortina d’Ampezzo’s ⁠sunlit Olimpia delle Tofane piste, came exactly a year ‌after she won world championship gold at Saalbach, Austria.

American star Vonn had been trying to claim her fourth Olympic medal despite suffering a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee just over a week ago, but her race ended early in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

She cried in anguish and pain after her awful fall high up the course, medical staff surrounding the distraught 41-year-old on the Olimpia delle Tofane piste where she has enjoyed much success in the past.

The 2010 Olympic downhill champion hit the firm snow face first after just 13 seconds of her descent. She then rolled down the slope with her skis still attached, which could likely cause further serious damage to her knee.

Vonn’s Olympic dream now lies in tatters after her brave effort to achieve the seemingly impossible, an attempt which ended with her being taken away in a helicopter as fans in the stands saluted her with loud applause.

One of world sport’s most recognisable faces and an alpine skiing icon, Vonn has insisted that she could not only compete but win against the world’s best women skiers, some of whom like Aicher are nearly half her age.

Vonn said ahead of the Games that she was planning on also competing in the team combined event on Tuesday and the super-G two days later.

But that now looks unlikely, a potential long lay-off perhaps heralding the end of her comeback to skiing in her early 40s.

Vonn retired in 2019 but returned to competition in November 2024 following surgery to partially replace her right knee to end persistent pain.

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

But retirement looms for Vonn following a disastrous end to one of the biggest stories of the Winter Olympics.

Vonn knew the risk she was taking by competing on Sunday and had even hit back at a doctor on social media who claimed the injury was “not a fresh tear”.

She responded by saying her ACL is “100% torn” and had hoped to defy the odds by replicating the Olympic downhill gold medal she won in Vancouver in 2010.

Videos on social media had shown her training in the gym after she said she had no pain or swelling of the knee, while two smooth runs in the build-up to the race had given her, and her team and fans, confidence.

Four-time British Olympian Chemmy Alcott was emotional on BBC coverage and said she “never believed” it would end in this way.

“What we saw [is] that the top of the piste is really hard for a fit athlete. It is brutal, think about her family, her team and herself.

“We have to be realistic – the risk was really high, the risk she takes when she falls will double that. Her body will not be able to take that.”

Alcott added that the long delay would also mean the snow on the piste would begin to melt in the midday sun, and therefore it would be unlikely that anyone would beat Johnson’s time of one minute 36.10 seconds.

Survivors, including a seriously injured child, taken to hospital as state governor declares three days of mourning.

A bus returning from a religious festival in northeast Brazil has veered off the road on a curve and overturned, killing at least 16 people, including four children, officials said.

The bus had been carrying about 60 people when it tipped over in the rural interior of Alagoas state on Tuesday, ejecting some passengers while others were trapped beneath the wreckage.

The Alagoas regional government said in a statement that seven women, five men and four children were among those killed. The accident remains under investigation and was described as “highly complex”.

Brazilian media reported that the bus had been returning from celebrations for Our Lady of Candelaria, a religious festival in the state of Ceara that attracts thousands of devotees every February 2.

“The bus went off the road on a curve, overturned, and some people were thrown out,” said Colonel Andre Madeiro, director of the Alagoas Aviation Department, which took part in the rescue operation.

“Some were trapped under the vehicle. It was a very bad accident, even atypical,” he told a news conference.

Images posted on the X social media platform of the reported crash site featured a severely-mangled bus lying on its side as injured passengers sat nearby waiting for help.

Survivors of the crash, including a seriously injured child, were taken to hospital, where they remain under medical care.

“I express my solidarity with the families and friends at this time of such great pain,” Governor Paulo Dantas wrote on social media. Three days of mourning will be observed in the state, he said.

Deadly road accidents are common in Brazil.

In October, 17 people died in the northeastern state of Pernambuco when a driver lost control of a bus.

More than 10,000 people died in traffic accidents in Brazil in 2024, according to the Ministry of Transportation, including in December 2024, when at least 32 people were killed when a passenger bus and a truck collided on a highway in southeastern Brazil’s state of Minas Gerais.

Also in 2024, a bus carrying a football team flipped on a road, killing three people.