Lindsey Vonn announced that she will not be participating in the 2014 Winter Olympics Tuesday morning.
It has been a rough year for Vonn.
On February 5 last year Vonn took a terrible fall while competing in Austria. Due to the fall Vonn tore her ACL, MCL as well as broke a bone in her lower right leg. She had surgery for this fall five days later. The beginning of the season was rough for Vonn, according to USA Today, because she started it in the hospital for intestinal illness and later for depression.
She started training again in August and said that her knee was 100 percent ready for competing again. After months of physical therapy training and training for competition, Vonn participated in her first downhill training since the injury on November 8.
Less than two weeks later Vonn crashed while training and suffered a partial tear in her ACL ten days before she was scheduled to compete.
On December 21, Vonn was competing in a downhill race in France with her boyfriend, Tiger Woods, watching. She was seen paused on the side of the slope, wincing and seemingly in pain, but Vonn shrugged it off with her mind set on the Olympics.
Early today, January 7, Vonn announced that she would not be competing in the Olympics. According to Sports Illustrated, Vonn wrote on her Facebook page Tuesday morning about her withdrawing from the games saying:
"I am devastated to announce that I will not be able to compete in Sochi. I did everything I possibly could to somehow get strong enough to overcome having no ACL but the reality has sunk in that my knee is just too unstable to compete at this level. I'm having surgery soon so that I can be ready for the World Championships at home in Vail next February. On a positive note, this means there will be an additional spot so that one of my teammates can go for gold. Thank you all so much for all of the love and support. I will be cheering for all of the Olympians and especially team USA!”
Vonn is scheduled for surgery and should be recovered in time for the 2014/2015 World Cup.