Vail’s Lindsey Vonn, a two-time World Cup overall champion, reports regularly from the tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
ZAGREB, CROATIA — I’m hanging in there, but it’s been pretty tough dealing with the wrist I injured in a giant slalom crash last week at Lienz, Austria.
I suffered a really bad bone bruise inside my left wrist joint, with some tiny stress fractures in the bone. It was on the verge of breaking, but didn’t. The wrist is extremely painful, and it’s getting so swollen that it makes my hand and forearm throb.
Skiing slalom, which I had to do last Tuesday and Sunday, means having to endure sharp pain because we block the slalom gates with our arms.
It feels like World Championships, Part 2. You may remember I cut my right thumb on a broken champagne bottle after winning my second gold medal at the world championships last year, and had to wear a heavy bandage on my hand for the slalom there.
My main goal is trying to get my arm ready and back in shape for the Vancouver Olympics. It should be a non-issue by then. That’s my hope and that’s my goal. I think I have enough time where I will be 100 percent by the time we get there. Until then, I’m just trying to figure out some way to ski slalom in a lot of pain.
They’ve told me the pain should start to ease up in three to four weeks. They told me it was best not to ski while it heals, but obviously that’s not what I chose to do. I’m probably delaying the healing process quite a bit, but at least there’s no risk of doing any more damage to it. I just have to tough it out.
I was 18th in Tuesday’s slalom and missed a gate in the second run Sunday. At least I’m out there, trying and doing the best I can. Unfortunately it’s not working out that well.
The issue is dealing with pain, lots of pain. It’s a matter of trying to tough it out and trying not to think about how much it hurts. I can’t push out of the start, and every time I hit a slalom gate it’s just incredibly painful. Therefore I’m not skiing confidently, not skiing aggressively.
It’s a lot harder than when I cut my thumb, because at least with my thumb, the pain was localized to one spot. With this my entire arm is involved, the pain is pretty widespread, so it’s a lot harder to block it out and be concentrated.
At least this week we’ve got a couple days of speed training and some speed races — two downhills and a super-G, Friday through Sunday in Haus, Austria. Hopefully it will heal fast and won’t hurt as much, since I won’t be hitting any gates. I’m hoping it will heal enough that I will be able to ski well in the slalom at Flachau, Austria, Jan. 12.
We’re doing a lot of physical therapy to get the swelling to go down and to stabilize the wrist. When I’m not skiing, I’m trying not to use it, and that seems to be helping. When I have a day off, it seems to improve, but when I ski slalom it hurts like it did before.
On a positive note, I was very falttered to learn I was named the female athlete of the decade by Universal Sports (Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt won the men’s honor). Usain Bolt is one of the greatest athletes I’ve ever seen, and I can’t believe I was named athlete of the decade. It’s an incredible honor.
I just don’t think of myself as being everything people say I am. I’m just trying to do my best every day. It seems like people appreciate my character and my determination and how hard I’ve worked. I really appreciate that.
Saturday night in Zagreb I met a little girl who gave me a three-page letter about how much I inspire her. It wasn’t even about my accomplishments, it was about my crash here last year. She thought it was amazing that I was able to get back up, give interviews and congratulate the winner.
I want to inspire people to do their best, to get back up when they get knocked down. To get that letter from that little girl was a really cool moment.
