NEW YORK — Lindsey Vonn’s stitched-up and swollen right thumb, sliced open on a champagne bottle during a photo op gone awry last month, is protected by a brace that wraps around her wrist.
“I’m not going to be opening champagne bottles anytime soon, probably not for the rest of my life,” Vonn said Thursday. “That’s a mistake you definitely learn from.”
Late in the just-concluded World Cup season, that freak injury forced Vonn to tape her pole to her glove for races. No matter: She finished off a second consecutive overall title, the first U.S. woman to win more than one.
These days, as Vonn does plenty of meeting and greeting to boost her own profile and her sport’s with the Vancouver Olympics less than a year away, the problematic thumb forces her to hide her right hand when it’s time to shake with someone. The Ski Club Vail product has managed to become quite adept at turning her left hand and folding it into the other person’s right.
Vonn said she worries she might need a second operation on the thumb, which she still can’t bend fully and may never be able to straighten.
“There’s always a possibility that there could be too much scar tissue, and I don’t get the range of motion back, and that would mean that I would have to have surgery again. But I’m hoping that that’s not the case,” Vonn said. “I’m hoping that it’s healing well, which the doctors say it is. So if all goes as planned, then I should be pain-free and without the brace in a month and a half.”
