In an a historic return to competitive skiing after years away, Vonn qualified for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. An ACL tear (Vonn’s third) wasn’t enough to keep her from the Games, but a brush with a gate during her downhill run on February 8 ended that dream. And as Vonn was rushed to the hospital to treat what would be revealed to be a complex tibia fracture, Leo suffered a crisis of his own.
“He had been recently diagnosed with lung cancer (he survived lymphoma a year and a half ago) but now his heart was failing him,” Vonn wrote. “He was in pain and his body could no longer keep up with his strong mind.”
Doctors advised Vonn against travel until she underwent four surgeries to stabilize the break, so she had to bid her ailing pup farewell from afar. “As I layed in my hospital bed the day after my crash, we said goodbye to my big boy,” she wrote. “I had lost so much that meant something to me in such a short amount of time.”
Vonn wasn’t able to return home until this week, when she documented a trip taken via private plane while still reclining in a hospital bed. “My injury was a lot more severe than just a broken leg,” she wrote Tuesday. “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.”
On Friday she wrote that she’d just completed a fifth surgery in a hospital in the US. “It took a bit more than 6 hours to complete,” Vonn said. “It required a lot of plates and screws to put back together.”
“With the extent of the trauma, I’ve been struggling a bit post op and have not yet been able to be discharged from the hospital just yet,” Vonn wrote, a circumstance likely worsened by the loss of her beloved pet.
“It’s going to be a while before I emotionally process things but I know he will always be with me,” Vonn wrote of Leo as she announced his passing this week. “There will never be another Leo. He will always be my first love.”
First published on Vanity Fair Italy
