Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn was airlifted to a hospital in Austria on Tuesday after a scary crash during during a super-G race at the Alpine World Championships in Schladming, Austria.
Video of the crash is embedded.
In the video, Vonn can be seen losing her balance after an awkward landing after a jump. She slid, lost her ski and then skidded into a gate. Vonn was evaluated -- on course -- for over ten minutes before deciding to airlift her to a nearby hospital.
Vonn lost her balance after landing awkwardly from a jump ... losing her ski and skidding into a gate. Doctors evaluated Vonn for more than ten minutes on the slope before she was loaded on to a helicopter and flown to a nearby hospital.
Reports are still sketchy, and differ in terms of the injury Vonn suffered. The New York Times reports that Vonn's serviceman Heinz Hammerle said he believed Vonn sustained an injury to her right knee. In addition, her sister Laura told NBC that Vonn would need surgery.
However, TMZ said that doctor who examined Vonn says he believes she suffered a tibial plateau fracture, better known as a fractured shinbone.
Vonn is the most successful U.S skier in history. According to Wikipedia, she won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the first ever in the event for an American woman. She has won four overall World Cup championships, one of only two female skiers to do so, along with Annemarie Moser-Pröll, including three consecutive titles in 2008, 2009, and 2010, along with another in 2012.
She has also won five consecutive World Cup season titles in the downhill, four consecutive titles in ther Super G, and three consecutive titles in the combined as of 2012.
Vonn is one of only six women to have won World Cup races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing: downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom, and super combined. As of Jan. 26, 2013, she had won 59 World Cup races in her career with only Annemarie Moser-Pröll of Austria (62) and Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden (86) having more.
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