Lindsey Vonn had an impossible choice to make. Compete in the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics, the ultimate feat for all alpine skiers in the world (of which she had been considerably dominant) or rest and receive treatment for her recently ruptured (anterior cruciate ligament) ACL. She chose to compete, and in doing so, sustained a career-ending injury. While the injury and fall itself wasn’t directly caused by her torn ACL, her situation encompasses an incredible dilemma facing all athletes—risk worsening your injury or compete in the event you’ve only spent your whole life training for.
I will say that her situation was unique due to the fact that not only is she 41 and this Olympics might have been her last anyways, but she was and still is the face for alpine skiing across the globe. However, she is added to a long list of athletes who have sustained an ACL injury at some point in their career. Among the list of ACL injuries just in the past year, some notable names come to mind: Micah Parsons, Patrick Mahomes, and Malik Nabers (there were over 30 athletes in the NFL alone).
In studies surrounding ACL injuries in the past, they have almost exclusively focused on male cohorts. However, the injury occurs significantly more in women athletes, 2 – 8 times more in comparable sports (soccer and basketball mainly) to be exact. That number is absolutely staggering, and it begs the question of why has there not been increased attention on researching female ACL injuries?
One main cause of this gap is the basic anatomy of a woman’s body. Wider hips, narrower femurs, larger quad-to-hamstring ratios, and hormonal factors all play a part in the ACL being a particularly vulnerable ligament for athletes in fast-paced contact sports.
Then there’s the other side of it. Conditioning for younger female athletes has often been viewed as less crucial or important compared to the conditioning for male athletes. When it comes to professional and amateur sports as well and money becomes a factor, higher budgets for male-sport strength and conditioning can put less of an emphasis on the needs of the weight room for women.
However, in March of 2025, The University of Southern California women’s basketball player Juju Watkins suffered a non-contact ACL injury, ending her season. She was the star of the team and was arguably the most famous athlete at USC– male or female. This injury sparked online debate about the emphasis athletic trainers need to put on earlier conditioning for female athletes and the research needed to fully address the disparities in injuries between men and women.
In history, scientific research and studies have mainly been centered around the male experience or involved male-majority cohorts. While the scientific community has made great strides to address these discrepancies and gaps, we still have a lot of work to do, especially in the athletic landscape which has historically been completely dominated by men.
While it’s important to discuss women athlete’s injuries and the implications that surround them, it is even more important to emphasize that these women are not defined by their injuries. Lindsey Vonn is one of the most decorated athletes in history, and her legacy will continue far past the injury and chain of events that transpired early this year.