US skier Lindsey Vonn revealed that her leg was injured so severely in her Olympic crash that amputation was a possibility until her doctor was able to relieve the traumatic injury.
Published On 23 Feb 202623 Feb 2026
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Lindsey Vonn has been through a lot over the last few weeks, even more than we previously knew.
The legendary U.S. ski racer revealed Wednesday that on the day after she crashed violently while competing at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, Vonn lost someone very close to her.
Her dog, Leo.
Vonn wrote in a lengthy Instagram post that Leo has joined two of her other canine companions, Lucy and Bear, “up in heaven.”
“This has been an incredibly hard few days. Probably the hardest of my life. I still have not come to terms that he is gone…” Vonn wrote. “The day I crashed, so did Leo. He had been recently diagnosed with lung cancer (he survived lymphoma a year and a half ago) but now his heart was failing him. He was in pain and his body could no longer keep up with his strong mind.
“As I layed in my hospital bed the day after my crash, we said goodbye to my big boy.”
Vonn adopted Leo from an animal shelter in January 2014, days after she came to the realization she would not be able to compete in that year’s Winter Games because of a knee injury. She wrote on social media at the time that Leo had been hit by a car and, like her at the time, had “a bad knee.”
“My boy has been with me since my second ACL injury, when I needed him most,” Vonn wrote in Wednesday’s post. “He held me on the sofa as I watched the Sochi Olympics. He lifted me up when I was down. He layed by me, and cuddle me, always making me feel safe and loved. We have been through so much together in 13 years.”
Vonn made a comeback last year after nearly six years away from ski racing. In December, the 41-year-old Olympic gold medalist announced on Instagram that she had qualified for “my 5th and final Olympics!”
On Jan. 30, a week before the start of the Milan-Cortina Games, Vonn crashed during a downhill race in Switzerland and suffered a complete rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, along with meniscus and bone damage.
Nonetheless, Vonn was determined to compete in the Olympics. After successfully completing multiple training runs, the 84-time World Cup winner started her downhill run at the top of the Olimpia delle Tofane course in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
It lasted 13 seconds. Vonn lost control on the first jump as her pole hit a gate, spun sideways in the air and slammed to the ground. She was airlifted by helicopter to a clinic in Cortina, then transferred to a larger hospital in Treviso.
The crash had left her with a complex tibia fracture.
After multiple surgeries in Italy, Vonn was transported by plane to a U.S. hospital this week.
“Thankful to all of the medical staff who helped me get home 🙏🏻❤️ and seriously looking forward to my next surgery when I can get the X-fix out of my leg and will be able to move more,” Vonn wrote Tuesday on Instagram.
“My injury was a lot more severe than just a broken leg. I’m still wrapping my head around it, what it means and the road ahead… but I’m going to give you more detail in the coming days.”
Vonn’s post announcing Leo’s death came on the morning of her next surgery and included more than a dozen photos and videos of her beloved pet.
“There will never be another Leo. He will always be my first love,” Vonn wrote. “Heading in for more surgery today. Will be thinking of him when I close my eyes. I will love you forever my big boy.”
Hours later, she wrote on her Instagram Story: “Going in for surgery soon… lot on my mind but hoping this will be a big step forward.”
That post also included a photo that Vonn appears to have taken from her hospital bed. It shows her injured leg stretched out on the mattress. Sitting next to the bed is her laptop, which displays a close-up photo of Leo playing in the snow.
MILAN — There’s a lot of love in those gloves.
Before her fateful downhill run Sunday — one that ended with a violent crash after 13 seconds — Lindsey Vonn pulled on a pair of out-of-production gloves from her childhood skiing idol, Picabo Street.
The gloves are weathered and white, their brightness dulled by the decades, with the brand name “reusch” across the knuckles and a big, plum-colored sun on top. On the wrist straps are Street’s initials, scrawled in marker.
Vonn didn’t announce the gesture, nor did NBC, which employs Street as a color commentator. Street was at the starting gate of the Olimpia delle Tofane course for Sunday’s coverage.
Street confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that the two longtime friends made the glove exchange before the Olympics.
“When she saw a picture of me in those gloves, she was like, ‘Oh, those would be cool,’” Street told the Times. “And I caught wind of it, and was like, ‘Well, I just happen to have them.’”
Those gloves are especially meaningful to Street because they are immortalized on the bronze statue of her in Sun Valley, Idaho. The sun across the top is visible in the sculpted detail.
“It was just my way of being able to show her that, you know, I love you and I believe in you,” Street said. “And wear these, they’ll be fun.”
The two were on the U.S. Ski Team together — Street at the end of her career, Vonn at the beginning — and have been close friends for years. Vonn co-produced the documentary “Picabo,” and in it tells Street, “You are my hero.”
The gloves Picabo Street gave to Lindsey Vonn before Vonn’s race in the Olympic downhill on Feb. 8.
(Courtesy of Picabo Street)
Street, whose skiing and who’s first name helped make her a pop-culture sensation during her Olympic career is a huge fan of Vonn. In speaking to the Times, she said on multiple occasions, “I’m not the story here, so this isn’t about me.”
Still, there are some uncanny coincidences. For instance, Vonn was the 13th skier in Sunday’s lineup and her run lasted 13 seconds before her fall, in which she broke her left leg. Late in her career, Street suffered a broken left leg in a race that took place on Friday the 13th in Crans Montana, Switzerland, where Vonn sustained a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in a fall at the end of January.
Street had an emotional reaction when she learned what bib number Vonn would be wearing.
“I about puked when I saw number 13,” Street said. “I got very little sleep. I cried all night long, and I cried in the morning. I couldn’t shake it.”
She said her main concern now is her friend’s return to health, not for competitive skiing but for life.
“I want her leg to work for her,” Street said. “I want her nerves to work for her. I want her to have function of her whole body again, and in case she wants to have a family, she can play with her kids.”
The gloves weren’t the first piece of equipment Street loaned to Vonn.
Lindsey Vonn prepares to leave the downhill starting gate while wearing Picabo Street’s gloves on Feb. 8.
(Screenshot courtesy of NBC)
“I remember when I raced in Salt Lake, and I retired, and I was packed up and leaving the house we were staying in,” Street said, referring to the 2002 Winter Olympics. “She came into the house, and I remember giving her a huge hug and giving her a couple of items — one of which she wore in those Games — which was a sleeve around her braid, because we both have really long hair.
“I wore a red, white and blue American-flag neoprene sleeve around my hair, and she wore one as well. I handed her that there and was like, ‘Here you go. Go get ‘em.’”
After Vonn’s crash Sunday, Street told her own mother about loaning the gloves.
“I said, ‘Oh God, mom, she was wearing my gloves,’” she said, her voice catching with emotion.
“At first my mom said, ‘Oh, honey,’ and then she goes, ‘OK, let’s flip this. Maybe the gloves kept her from getting injured worse.’”
American skier Lindsey Vonn says she has “no regrets” after a crash in the women’s downhill competition at the Winter Olympics resulted in a “complex tibia fracture” which will require multiple surgeries.
The 41-year-old’s arm got stuck in a gate just 13 seconds into her run on Sunday at Olimpia delle Tofane in Cortina, throwing her off balance.
She was treated on the slope for a lengthy period before being airlifted off the piste to Ca Foncello hospital in Treviso, where she had surgery on a fractured left leg.
The 2010 Olympic downhill champion was already racing with ruptured ligaments in her left knee but was determined to compete in her fifth and final Games.
“Yesterday my Olympic dream did not finish the way I dreamt it would,” she said in a post on Instagram on Monday.
“It wasn’t a story book ending or a fairytale, it was just life. I dared to dream and had worked so hard to achieve it.
“While yesterday did not end the way I had hoped, and despite the intense physical pain it caused, I have no regrets.
“Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself.”
Vonn crashed in Switzerland in the final race before the Olympics nine days before competing in the downhill event in Italy.
In a media conference on Wednesday, she confirmed she had torn her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) but expressed determination to compete.
The two-time world champion says the torn ACL and her previous injuries, including a partial right knee replacement, “had nothing to do with my crash whatsoever”.
Vonn’s decision to race has led to widespread praise for her bravery but also criticism about the dangers and potential risk of permanent damage.
“It always was and always will be an incredibly dangerous sport. And similar to ski racing, we take risks in life,” she said.
“We dream. We love. We jump. And sometimes we fall. Sometimes our hearts are broken. Sometimes we don’t achieve the dreams we know we could have. But that is also the beauty of life; we can try.
“I hope if you take away anything from my journey it’s that you all have the courage to dare greatly. Life is too short not to take chances on yourself. Because the only failure in life is not trying.
“I tried. I dreamt. I jumped.”
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Lindsey Vonn’s downhill run lasted 13 seconds. The question of whether she should have been racing at all with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament will be debated for years.
What was going on in the mind of the legendary 41-year-old ski racer, whose violent crash resulted in her being airlifted off the course and in surgery hours later Sunday with, at minimum, a fractured left leg?
Was it a calculated risk or stubborn foolishness?
“She’s so tough mentally that as long as physically she was OK, she was going to do it,” said Stacey Cook, a retired racer and Vonn’s former teammate on the U.S. Ski Team. “I think the harder part is wrapping your mind around putting yourself at risk again. And that’s never been an issue for her. She’s always been willing to, like, put it on the line… She was always the, like, extra fearless one.”
American Lindsey Vonn completed an alpine ski downhill training session in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, without incident on Friday, two days before she crashed.
(Marco Trovati / Associated Press)
What’s more, Cook said, consider what was at stake.
“It isn’t common in everyday life to go another week with an ACL injury, putting yourself at risk,” Cook said. “It’s always common to take care of it right away. But there’s more on the line for the Olympics than that.”
Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who lives in Los Angeles and is a preeminent sports surgeon, doesn’t count Vonn among his current patients but he has scoped her knee twice to remove scar tissue. He’s also in contact with members of her medical team, as he trained Dr. Tom Hackett, a renowned orthopedic surgeon at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colo., who works with Vonn to manage her knee health.
“These aren’t amateur people who were helping her make this decision,” said ElAttrache, who specializes in sports medicine at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic and is renowned for his treatment and research of knee, shoulder and elbow injuries.
ElAttrache said the typical risk-reward calculation was not in play.
“Everybody knew going into it that there was only one way that this was going to come out good, and that’s if she not only made it through the race, but performed well,” he said. “If she didn’t ski a Lindsey Vonn race and was at least competitive at the top of the leaderboard, it would be considered a failure. There wasn’t a lot of upside, except for Lindsey.”
This combination of images shows American Lindsey Vonn crashing during an alpine ski women’s downhill race at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, on Sunday.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)
Vonn’s crash came near the top of the Olimpia delle Tofane course where she had won 12 World Cup races during her storied career, six in downhill and six in super-G. She was on the podium there a total of 20 times before these Olympics.
Cook said the first turn on the course, which Vonn was traversing when she got into trouble, is actually much steeper falling away from the skier than it looks on TV.
“It’s like dipping into a double-black-diamond and trying to come back out of it for a second,” Cook said. “What the racer sees in that section is way different than how it looks on TV. The way it feels is a lot different.”
The racer is traversing the hill perpendicular to the fall line, almost moving in an upward direction.
“It’s a very tough turn,” Cook said. “And the next gate, you can’t see it until you’re pretty much on top of it. You might as well put on a blindfold because you can’t see anything in front of you.”
She said you have to be there to truly understand the difficulty of negotiating the turn.
American Lindsey Vonn crashes during the alpine downhill during the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, on Sunday.
(Handout / Getty Images)
“To the average fan, you would stand on top of it and just go, ‘Um, no. Not doing that.’ ”
ElAttrache has studied video of the crash and said there’s no obvious indication the knee in question caused Vonn to fall.
“It’s unclear that her fall was due to an instability event in her knee … and when you look at it, you don’t see that she was weight-bearing on that knee and that she had an instability event that led to the fall,” he said.
An executive from the International Ski and Snowboard Federation told reporters Monday that Vonn was simply “incredibly unlucky” in the crash.
“It was a one in a 1,000,” said Johan Eliasch, FIS president. “She got too close to the gate, and she got stuck when she was in the air in the gate and started rotating. No one can recover from that, unless you do a 360. … This is something which is part of ski racing. It’s a dangerous sport.”
Vonn had a chance to compete on one of her favorite courses and cap her career with a meaningful Olympic moment.
“This was not about proving anything to anyone,” said Dr. Armando Gonzalez, Vonn’s mental coach, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times two days before the fateful race. “It was more about defying the odds that were placed against her and being a competitor that always found a way, no matter what, no matter if it was pain, no matter if it was noise from the outside, she’d always find a way.”
ElAttrache made a comparison between Vonn and star NFL receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who was playing on a compromised ACL when the Rams won the Super Bowl in the 2021 season. Beckham understood the risks, but was somewhat at an advantage as a receiver because he knew the routes he would be running, as opposed to being a defensive back who has to react abruptly to what the player he’s covering is doing.
In the first half of the Super Bowl against Cincinnati, Beckham suffered a complete ACL tear and was incapacitated.
Often, ElAttrache said, an ultra-elite athlete will apply a different calculus when deciding whether to play with an injury such as a compromised ACL.
He said Vonn, having endured multiple injuries and surgeries to both knees, understood the risks to her own body the way few athletes do. And whereas most skiers would be hamstrung by a fear of injury that could endanger their career, Vonn is an established icon willing to accept risks others might not. In short, it might not make sense to many, but it made sense to the battle-tested Vonn, who has “earned the right” to make those types of decisions.
What’s more, she had performed well on the same course the day before.
“If you have somebody like her, who’s earned the right to try it, if that’s what she really wants to do, she was going into that race as one of the best skiers on the U.S. team,” ElAttrache said. “She was driving that ship.”
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO — CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — The mountainside packed with fans and competitors was eerily silent after disaster struck.
Lindsey Vonn, attempting to win a gold medal despite sustaining a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her final race before the Games, clipped her pole on a gate early in her first Olympic downhill skiing run and crashed Sunday.
Vonn, 41, could be heard screaming after the crash. She received medical attention on the snow and was airlifted off the mountain.
The race was halted while Vonn was treated. Her teammate, Breezy Johnson, held the early lead and went on to win the race after the competition resumed. Johnson won the Americans’ first gold medal of the Games.
The U.S. downhill team celebrated with Johnson but continued to think of Vonn.
American Lindsey Vonn crashes into a gate during an alpine ski downhill race at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday.
(Handout / Getty Images)
“It’s heartbreaking,” said American Isabella Wright, who finished 22nd in the competition. “Jackie [Wiles] and myself, we were up there. We watched it live and things just happen so quick in this sport. It looked like Lindsey had incredible speed out of that turn and she hooked her arm [on a gate on the course] and it’s just over. Just like that. After all the preparation, after years of hard work and rehabilitation and all the things, it’s the last thing you want to see somebody go through.”
Vonn retired after a series of injuries seemed to be too much to overcome. Nearly six years later, she announced she missed racing and was confident she had fully recovered her form after a right knee replacement.
She shocked many by immediately winning races needed to qualify for the Games and entered the Olympics as the leader in the World Cup downhill standings. Nine days ago, she suffered a torn ACL, a bone bruise and meniscus damage.
Amid great scrutiny, Vonn was determined to keep racing with the support of her medical team and a large knee brace. She was optimistic about her ability to compete after practice runs and pushed back at critics on the social media platform X.
Fans react after watching American Lindsey Vonn crash during the women’s downhill skiing race at the Winter Olympics Sunday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s the last thing you want to see for Lindsey, but she should be really proud of everything she has gone through to get back here,” Wright said. “And regardless, if got last today, if she won — she obviously crashed. Whatever happened today, she’s an inspiration to all of us and she should be really proud. I know it probably doesn’t feel like that right now, but I hope one day she can recognize that.”
Skiing icon Vonn cried in anguish and pain after her awful fall high up the course days after sustaining an ACL injury.
Published On 8 Feb 20268 Feb 2026
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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.
MILAN — One short week after Lindsey Vonn crashed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, and tore her left anterior cruciate ligament, she was tearing down the hill in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, a light knee brace warping the fabric of her racing suit the only obvious sign of anything amiss. When she finished the training run Friday, clocking the third-fastest time for a U.S. woman on the day, she casually fist bumped an American teammate at the finish line.
She made the feat look effortless. Sports medicine experts can say it’s anything but.
“It’s atypical to be able to compete without an ACL, at anything, but especially at a high level like Lindsey Vonn’s going to compete at,” said Clint Soppe, a board certified orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai. “So this is very surprising news to me as well.”
The ACL, which connects the shin bone to the femur, is a main stabilizing force in the knee and protects the lower leg from sliding forward. Straight-line movement doesn’t stress the major knee ligament and some day-to-day tasks such as walking are easily accomplished without an ACL. But what Vonn is doing is far from normal.
“If you add cutting, pivoting, changing directions, in 95% of humans, you need an ACL to do that,” said Kevin Farmer, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at the University of Florida’s department of orthopedics and sports medicine. “She’s obviously fallen into that 5%.”
Farmer calls the rare group “copers.” They overcome the lack of an ACL by strengthening and engaging other muscles. It’s primarily the hamstrings and quadriceps, but everything, including the glutes, calves, hips and core, counts.
Vonn will have had just nine days between the Olympic downhill race and her injury when she stands at the start gate Sunday. But the 41-year-old has had her whole career to develop the type of strength and control necessary to carry her through the Games without an ACL. She’s already done it before.
Lindsey Vonn concentrates ahead of a downhill training run in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Friday.
(Marco Trovati / Associated Press)
Vonn skied on a torn right ACL for more than a month until withdrawing just before the 2014 Sochi Olympics. In 2019, she won a bronze medal at world championships without a lateral collateral ligament and three tibial fractures in her left knee. She said this week that the same knee feels better than it did during that bronze medal run.
“She’s dealt with knee injuries in this knee before, so she’s been able to develop mechanisms and strategies,” Farmer said. “She probably doesn’t even realize that, but just from years of practicing with a knee that’s not normal, her body has developed mechanisms of firing patterns that allow her knee to have some inherent stability that most people don’t have.”
For athletes who suffer major injuries for the first time, pain often prevents them from firing their muscles, said Jason Zaremski, a nonoperative musculoskeletal and sports medicine physician and clinical professor at the University of Florida’s department of physical medicine and rehabilitation. But Vonn, whose injury history is almost as long as her resume, looked calm during training, her coach Aksel Lund Svindal told reporters in Cortina on Saturday.
So even if she’s one ACL short, Vonn’s team knows she has more than enough of the intangibles to get her not only down the mountain, but into medal contention.
“Her mental strength,” Svindal told reporters in Cortina on Saturday. “I think that’s why she has won as much as she has.”
Vonn completed her second training run Saturday with the third-fastest time before training was suspended after 21 athletes. She was 0.37 second behind compatriot Breezy Johnson, who is intimately familiar with what Vonn is attempting.
Johnson, a medal contender for the United States who led the second training run at 1 minute and 37.91 seconds, attempted to ski in Cortina without an ACL in 2022. She had one successful training run, but crashed on the second one, sustaining further injuries that forced her to withdraw from the Beijing Olympics.
Johnson, like many, gasped when she saw Vonn’s knee buckle slightly on a jump during training Saturday. She said coming off jumps on this course are especially difficult.
“There are, I think, more athletes that ski without ACLs and with knee damage than maybe talk about it,” Johnson said at a news conference from Cortina. “… I think that people often are unwilling to talk about it because of judgment from the media and the outside.”
Critics say Vonn is taking a spot from a healthy teammate or that she simply refuses to give up the sport for good. But Vonn has already come to terms with the end of her career. She said she came out of retirement with a partially replaced right knee simply wanting an opportunity to put the perfect bow on her ski racing career at a course she especially loves.
The stage is different, but the sentiment is familiar to Zaremski. The doctor has worked with high school athletes who beg for a chance to play a final game after suffering a torn ACL. Through bracing, taping and treatment, sometimes there are temporary fixes for the biggest moments.
“If we’re trying to get a huge event like the Olympics, I would never put anything past [Vonn],” Zaremski said. “She’s an amazing, once-in-a-generation athlete.”
Lindsey Horvath will not run for Los Angeles mayor, becoming the latest political heavyweight to decide against a challenge to incumbent Karen Bass.
Horvath, who as an L.A. County supervisor represents 2 million people in a sprawling Westside and San Fernando Valley district, ended weeks of speculation about her political intentions, saying her work in the county “is not finished.”
“Over these past few months, you have shown me all the reasons you love Los Angeles —and why it’s worth fighting for,” Horvath said Friday in a statement. “I am grateful to the many leaders, organizations, and every single Angeleno who urged me to run for Mayor of Los Angeles.”
Horvath’s announcement, issued the night before the deadline for candidates to file, comes days after former L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutner ended his mayoral campaign, citing the death of his 22-year-old daughter. Real estate developer Rick Caruso also removed himself from contention, saying for a second time Thursday that he would not run.
The filing period for mayoral candidates in the June 2 primary closes at noon on Saturday.
Horvath, 43, has been one of the mayor’s most outspoken critics over the past year, assailing her record on homelessness and last year’s Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead. On social media, Horvath stoked speculation about her political future while calling the city’s record on homelessness “indefensible.”
Bass, in turn, has criticized county officials for pulling hundreds of millions of dollars out of a city-county agency on homelessness — a move spearheaded by Horvath — and into a new county agency. More recently, the mayor spoke out against the county’s plan to cut $200 million in homeless services.
Bass, 72, still faces several other challengers from across the political spectrum.
Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, has received praise from an array of Trump supporters, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, of Florida. Pratt has focused heavily on the city’s handling of the fire, which destroyed his home.
Democratic socialist Rae Huang is running against the mayor from her political left. Huang has called for more public housing and for a reduction in the number of police officers, with the cost savings poured into other city services.
Brentwood tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, who describes himself as a lifelong Democrat, said the city is on a downward trajectory and needs stronger management. The 56-year-old nonprofit executive plans to tap his personal wealth to jump-start his campaign.
Also in the race is Asaad Alnajjar, an employee of the Bureau of Street Lighting who sits on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council. Alnajjar, who has already loaned his campaign $80,000, said he would do a better job than Bass at running the city.
“I’m a leader. She’s a manager. That’s the difference,” said Alnajjar, 61.
With so many candidates in the mix, Bass and her political team do not expect she will clear the 50% bar to avoid a November runoff.
Bass has been running on her record, touting a major drop in homicides and reductions in street homelessness since she took office in 2022. She has talked up her efforts to speed up the approval of affordable housing and permits for rebuilding projects in Pacific Palisades.
The mayor has positioned herself as a check on Trump’s agenda. During last summer’s immigration raids in Los Angeles, she regularly called on the president to end the crackdown and remove the California National Guard from the city.
From the beginning, a mayoral run would have been a risky move for Horvath, who is not expected to face any major challengers to her own bid for reelection.
Horvath would have had to forfeit her seat to run against Bass, while facing a tight timeline for fundraising. Her campaign had already scheduled a reelection fundraiser for next week — after the filing deadline for mayoral candidates.
In political circles, Horvath is viewed as a strong candidate in 2028 for county chief executive, an elected office created through a ballot measure that Horvath championed.
The will-she-or-won’t-she events of the past week elevated Horvath’s political profile, as she aired her criticisms of the mayor on CNN and other news shows.
Relations between Bass and Horvath have been chilly at least since the Palisades fire broke out. The two were at odds over the press conferences that were held to update the public on the disaster and on efforts to reopen the burn area to traffic.
The relationship deteriorated further after Horvath and her colleagues voted to shift hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county partnership, and into a new county agency on homelessness.
Horvath, on social media, accused Bass of putting out “misinformation” about the new county agency. Bass, in turn, warned the county’s actions could cause the city to backslide in its fight against homelessness.
Horvath has been in elected office on and off since 2009, when she joined the West Hollywood City Council. She left the council in 2011, then rejoined in 2015, staying for about seven years.
In 2022, Horvath won her supervisorial seat, defeating former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, a political veteran.
Had she entered the race, Horvath would have faced questions about an array of issues bedeviling the county, including a $4-billion legal payout over sexual abuse that was later marred by allegations of fraud.
She was also a major force behind Measure G, a 2024 ballot measure that will expand the number of county supervisors and create the county CEO position but also is on track to inadvertently repeal a criminal justice reform measure passed by voters in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
MILAN — A partial knee replacement in her right leg wasn’t enough to stop Lindsey Vonn from pursuing her Olympic comeback. Neither will a recent left torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Vonn revealed Tuesday she suffered a completely ruptured ACL in a crash last week but remains focused on racing in the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
“If my knee is not stable, I can’t compete and at the moment, it is stable and it is strong,” Vonn said during a virtual news conference from Cortina d’Ampezzo. “… So far so good but we have to take it day by day. But if it remains the way it is now, I think I’m pretty solid.”
The 41-year-old Vonn said she skied Tuesday to test her knee. She is not in any pain and the swelling has gone down, but with bone bruising and additional meniscus damage, she still has to tackle full-speed downhill training runs beginning on Thursday before the downhill competition starts Sunday.
Vonn, who also has hopes to race in the super-G and the team event, said her “intention is to race everything.”
“I am not letting this slip through my fingers,” she said. “I’m going to do it, end of story. I’m not letting myself go down that path. I’m not crying. My head is high, I’m standing tall and I’m going to do my best, whatever the result is.”
Vonn is no stranger to knee injuries. She retired from the sport in 2019 and underwent a partial knee replacement in April 2024. Since announcing her comeback in November 2024, Vonn has already defied expectations by becoming the oldest skier to win a World Cup race when she won at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in December and by making the Olympic team seven years after her retirement.
“I think if anyone can do it, it’s Lindsey,” U.S. teammate Bella Wright said of competing with a torn ACL. “I think we all know how strong of a skier she is, but I think that her mental game is what makes Lindsey Lindsey.”
Vonn was racing at a World Cup event Jan. 30 at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, when she lost control while attempting to land a jump. She slid into the safety netting and was later airlifted to a hospital. While a torn ACL typically sends athletes straight to the operating room, Vonn said surgery was not a discussion.
“The Olympics are the only thing that I’m thinking about,” Vonn said.
Despite the crash occurring so close to the Games, Vonn said her knee feels better now than when she has battled other injuries, including in 2019 when she competed at the world championships without a lateral collateral ligament and three tibial plateau fractures. She still won the bronze medal.
“I know what my chances [at the Olympics] were before the crash, and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today,” Vonn said, “but I know there’s still a chance and as long as there’s a chance, I will try.”
Lindsey Vonn sat out a World Cup super-G race Saturday after crashing and injuring her left knee a day earlier but remains on track for the Milan Cortina Olympics, her coach told the Associated Press.
“No she is not racing today but preparing for Cortina as usual,” Chris Knight, Vonn’s personal head coach, said in a text message to the AP.
Vonn then posted on Instagram, “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to race today,” adding, “Thank you for all of the love and support I have received. Means the world to me.
“Doing my best right now….,” Vonn concluded with praying hands and fingers-crossed emojis.
Vonn crashed in a downhill in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, on Friday and ended up in the safety nets. After skiing down to the bottom of the course, she was airlifted away for medical attention.
It still wasn’t clear what her injury was.
“I crashed today in the downhill race in Switzerland and injured my left knee. I am discussing the situation with my doctors and team and will continue to undergo further exams,” Vonn wrote on Instagram on Friday.
Vonn, a 41-year-old American, is expected to be one of the biggest stars of the Winter Games, which open next Friday. Her first race comes two days later in the women’s downhill.
Saturday’s super-G was slated to be her final race before the Games.
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass did something this week that would have been unthinkable three years ago — she took an unprompted swipe at her counterparts in L.A. County.
Bass, while weighing in on L.A.’s so-called “mansion tax,” dinged the county for creating what she called a “bureaucratic” homelessness agency, saying it threatened to undermine the city’s progress on the crisis.
County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath hit back hard, telling Bass on X that the county created the new agency because the existing one — which is partly overseen by Bass appointees — was incapable of tracking its spending.
“The County is fixing the problems you’ve ignored,” Horvath said.
Things have been bad between Bass and Horvath for more than a year, with the two Democrats taking veiled, and sometimes not-so-veiled, swipes at each other. But could they become adversaries in the truest sense of the word — as head-to-head rivals in this year’s mayoral election?
Horvath, who has spent months lining up endorsements for her own reelection campaign, has until Saturday to decide whether to enter the mayor’s race, challenging Bass’ bid for a second term. She told The Times she is seriously weighing a run — and “spending the weekend in deep reflection” with friends and family.
“From a young age, my faith has guided me through the most important moments of my life,” said Horvath, who is Catholic. “This is one of those moments.”
Bass, who is running in the June 2 primary for a second term, is already facing challenges from reality television star Spencer Pratt, former school superintendent Austin Beutner and community organizer Rae Huang, who has focused heavily on housing issues. Still, a Horvath bid would reshape the contest dramatically.
Beutner has not campaigned publicly since Jan. 5, one day before his 22-year-old daughter died of undetermined causes. Real estate developer Rick Caruso opted on Jan. 16 to stay out of the race, after sharply criticizing Bass for more than a year.
On paper, a Horvath mayoral bid looks somewhat risky. If she takes the plunge, she would no longer be permitted to seek reelection to her supervisorial seat, representing about 2 million people on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley. Bass has been raising money for more than a year and has locked up key endorsements, including the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
If she runs, Horvath would face questions about the county’s difficulties, including a $4-billion legal payout over sexual abuse that has been marred by fraud allegations and a screwup surrounding Measure G, the 2024 ballot measure that will expand the number of county supervisors but also is on track to inadvertently repeal a criminal justice reform measure.
On top of that, there’s the secret $2-million payout to the county’s top executive.
Horvath said she’s seen recent polling that makes clear that “there’s an appetite for change” among Angelenos. Community leaders, residents of her supervisorial district and “those longing for a better Los Angeles” have been asking her to run, she said.
“I am listening carefully and seriously both to those who are urging me to enter this race, and to those who are eager to continue the work we have begun together at the County,” she said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Bass campaign said he does not comment on prospective candidates. Pratt, for his part, said he’s rooting for Horvath to jump in so that “voters can see two career politicians calling each other out for the failed policies they both promoted.”
“Lindsey Horvath and Karen Bass are both responsible for the decline of our city, and the more they talk about each other, the more the public will see why we need a complete reset,” he said in a statement.
Even if Horvath doesn’t run, it looks like her relationship with the mayor will be rocky for the foreseeable future. The first-term supervisor has emerged as one of Bass’ most outspoken critics, highlighting an array of issues at City Hall.
Earlier this month, Horvath told The Times that she hears regularly from Angelenos who complain that they’re not getting basic services. She said that support within City Hall for Inside Safe, the mayor’s program to combat homelessness, is eroding.
Horvath has also taken aim at the city’s response to the Palisades fire, pointing out in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom that the Fire Department’s after-action report was watered down and then disavowed by its author. A day later, she told CBS2 that Bass was not being truthful about the county’s new homelessness agency.
Bass also has her own bully pulpit. On Friday, she stood outside federal court and railed against the indictment of independent journalist Don Lemon, calling it an “assault on our democracy.” Prosecutors have accused Lemon of violating federal law while reporting on a protest inside a Minnesota church.
The strained relations between Bass and Horvath are noteworthy given the mayor’s heavy focus on collaboration early on in her administration, when she triumphantly declared she was “locking arms” with a wide array of elected officials — including county supervisors — in the fight against homelessness.
Bass has attempted to stay above the fray, mostly avoiding direct conflict with other politicians — at least in public. But the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead, showed things weren’t always amiable behind the scenes.
Two weeks after the fires, Horvath and Bass were at odds over their joint public appearances, with Horvath complaining via text message that the mayor’s approach didn’t feel “very ‘locked arms.’”
Months later, Horvath and her colleagues on the Board of Supervisors voted to pull hundreds of millions of dollars from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, moving the money to the new county homelessness agency.
Horvath said the change was urgently needed in the wake of highly damaging reports about LAHSA’s financial oversight. Bass, in turn, warned the move would create a “monumental disruption” for the city’s effort to bring unhoused residents indoors.
Last month, Bass published an opinion piece in the Daily News criticizing the county, pointing out that its new homelessness agency was already proposing cuts to programs that have served the city’s unhoused population.
Bass echoed that criticism in a recent interview, saying the cuts were proposed a year after voters approved a half-cent sales tax to fund homeless services.
Those reductions, if enacted, would scale back the operations of A Pathway Home, the county’s counterpart to Inside Safe.
“We are going to do the best we can without a full partner in the county,” Bass said.
Horvath, for her part, said she wants to scale back A Pathway Home because it is too costly — and is not achieving the success that county officials want.
— BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD: City Councilmember Nithya Raman fell short in her attempt to send voters a ballot proposal rewriting Measure ULA, the tax on property sales of $5.3 million and up. Councilmembers said they did not even want to discuss the idea until it had been vetted by her committee.
— PIT BULL PAYOUT: The city paid more than $3 million last year to a woman who adopted a dog from the South L.A. animal shelter, only to have it attack her two days later. She later found out the dog had bitten a grandmother’s face. The case is raising questions about the way some shelter dogs are promoted on Instagram and other platforms.
— HEADING TO TRIAL: After a weeklong hearing, a judge ruled on Wednesday that the criminal case against Councilmember Curren Price can proceed to trial. Price, who has been charged with embezzlement, perjury and violations of conflict-of-interest laws, is slated to leave office in December. His lawyer said he did not act with “wrongful intent.”
— CLEARING CASES: Los Angeles police solved more than two thirds of homicides citywide in 2025, in a year that ended with the fewest number of slayings in six decades, according to figures released Thursday.
— GIVING TO GIBSON DUNN: The council signed off on a $1.8-million increase to its legal contract with Gibson Dunn, which is representing the city in the seemingly endless L.A. Alliance case. The increase, which passed on a 9-4 vote, brings the contract to nearly $7.5 million.
— PAYOUT PAUSE: Los Angeles County will halt some payments from its $4-billion sex-abuse settlement, as prosecutors ramp up their probe into allegations of fraud.
— LAPD VS. PROTESTER: A tense exchange between an LAPD captain and one of the Police Department’s most outspoken critics has gone viral.
— BATTLING TRUMP, PART 1: President Trump signed an executive order to allow victims of the Los Angeles wildfires to rebuild without obtaining “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” permits. The order, which is likely to be challenged by the city and state, was immediately derided by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said Trump should provide FEMA relief.
— BATTLING TRUMP, PART 2: Trump also vowed to fight the construction of new low-income housing in the Pacific Palisades burn area. L.A. officials say no projects are planned.
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
U.S. skiing great Lindsey Vonn says her “Olympic dream is not over” after crashing and injuring her knee during a downhill race that was meant to be her final warmup before the start of the Milan Cortina Games next week.
“I crashed today in the Downhill race in Switzerland and injured my left knee,” the 41-year-old former Olympic gold medalist posted Friday on her Instagram Story. “I am discussing the situation with my doctors and team and will continue to undergo further exams.
“This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics… but if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s a comeback.
“My Olympic dream is not over. Thank you all for all of the love and support. I will give more information when I have it. … It’s not over until it’s over.”
Taking part in a World Cup race in Crans Montana, Vonn lost control while attempting to land a jump on the upper portion of the course and slid into the safety netting. After receiving medical attention for about five minutes, Vonn slowly skied to the finish line, using her poles to support herself and stopping twice to clutch her knee.
She smiled and waved to the crowd after crossing the finish line and received a long embrace from teammate Jacqueline Wiles before entering the medical tent. She was later airlifted off the slope for further evaluation.
Vonn was the third skier to crash during the race, which was being held in difficult conditions with low visibility. The event was canceled after Vonn’s fall.
After nearly six years away from ski racing, Vonn made a comeback last year and has two victories and three additional podium finishes in five downhill races this season — all with a partial titanium implant in her right knee.
At the 2010 Vancouver Games, Vonn became the only U.S. woman to win Olympic gold in downhill skiing. She also won bronze medals in the super-G 2010 and downhill in 2018. On Dec. 23, Vonn announced on Instagram she had qualified for “my 5th and final Olympics!”
“When I made the decision to return to ski racing, I always had one eye on Cortina because it’s a place that is very, very special to me,” she wrote. “Although I can’t guarantee any outcomes, I can guarantee that I will give my absolute best every time l kick out of the starting gate. No matter how these games end up, I feel like I’ve already won.”
The opening ceremony for the Milan Cortina Games is Feb. 6. Vonn’s first scheduled event is the women’s downhill on Feb. 8. She had also planned on competing in the super-G and the new team combined event.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.