Women’s alpine skiing gold medal favourite Lindsey Vonn hopes to ski in Vancouver despite an “excruciatingly painful” injury to her right shin after falling over in a training session in Austria last week.

“It’s probably the worst place you can have an injury, there’s no was around it and you feel it on every turn” Vonn said at a USA Alpine Team Press Conference.

“I tried putting my boot on in my hotel room this morning and it was excruciatingly painful.”

Vonn, 25, is currently leading the women’s alpine skiing World Cup Overall standings and has won nine races this season.

She has been touted as the big American hope for the Games and the glamour girl is the face and body of Sports Illustrated’s Winter Olympic Edition.

With the weight of a nation on her shoulders, Vonn still plans on competing in all five of her races. However, she is playing down her chances of being Vancouver’s Michael Phelps.

“I’m just focusing on skiing well, one day at a time, trying to get one medal of any colour.”

“I’m not trying to get five medals, I’m not trying to be Michael Phelps, I’m just trying to be Lindsay Vonn.”

This isn’t the first time that the American has suffered an injury setback at the Olympics. In Torino 2006, she crashed during downhill training and had to be flown in a helicopter off the mountain to hospital. A few days later she finished eighth.

Tom Read
Vancouver