Lindsey Vonn was bitten by the injury bug again. This time, really bitten.
The star American skier needed stitches in her right thumb after trying to break up a fight between her dogs over a Frisbee. On Saturday, she described what happened on her Twitter account and then posted a video of her injured thumb.
“This is what I get,” Vonn said on her Instagram account. She also thanked U.S. ski team physician Dr. Randy Viola for fixing her thumb. She is healing from a broken left ankle suffered in a crash during training three months ago and recently pronounced herself ready to race.
Vonn told The Associated Press she plans to ski Sunday and will be fine for a World Cup giant slalom in Aspen at the end of the month.
It’s not the first time she has hurt her thumb, either. At the 2009 world championships, she sliced open her thumb on a champagne bottle. Vonn raced with her right hand taped to the pole.
This has been a rough start to the season for the four-time overall World Cup champion. Her recovery from the broken ankle kept her out of the season-opening giant slalom in Austria last month.
Vonn captured Olympic gold in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games. She couldn’t defend her crown four years later in Sochi because of a serious knee injury.
Her list of injuries over the years is rather lengthy. She withdrew midway through the 2011 world championships because of a concussion. She raced with a severely bruised shin at the 2010 Olympics. She hurt her knee in training and missed a pair of races at the 2007 worlds and took a scary fall during training at the 2006 Olympics, then left the hospital to compete.
Vonn, 31, is the all-time winningest female World Cup racer, with 67 victories.
