Olympian Lindsey Vonn crashed during one of her runs during a super-G race at the World Championships and was airlifted to a local hospital.
According to the Associated Press, Vonn injured herself after losing balance on her right leg after landing from a jump. Her ski came off her foot right away and forced Vonn to slide off the course and crash into a gate. She received medical attention on the slope for over 10 minutes and was brought to the hospital.
At the time, Vonn was trailing race leader and rival Tina Maze of Slovenia by 0.12 seconds. The event was postponed for 3 1/2 hours because of fog and restarted after a 15-minute delay.
According to the Denver Post, doctors say that Vonn may have suffered a tibial plateau fracture, a break in the leg bone near her knee and shin.
In a blog post for the Denver Post on Sunday, Vonn expressed some issues about the conditions of the hill. "None of our staff has been on the hill," she wrote. "We don't know what shape the hill is in. We don't know anything about it."
According to Ski Racing magazine, who was reporting on site, Vonn appeared to be hurt and that the finish stadium was silent. It was a scary crash. Teammate Mikaela Shiffrin tweeted, "She has to be OK ... Please be OK." Former World Cup downhiller Brian Stemmle tweeted, "It doesn't look good at all."
Vonn came into the race on a hot streak after winning two races in one week during the World Cup Giant Slalom races. She also has reportedly been dating Tiger Woods and missed time last year due to an illness.
Vonn's new relationship with golfer Tiger Woods may have kept her focused, as the skier won the World Cup Giant Slalom during the same week as a PGA championship for Woods.
Vonn defeated rival Tina Maze in her own country, leaving her in second place after two great runs. Her winning time was 2 minutes, 22.2 seconds. Austria's Anna Fenninger was third, 0.57 seconds behind Vonn.
"In the second run I decided, OK, it's all or nothing, I had to go for it," Vonn said to ESPN.com. "It's been a rough year for me in GS, so it's just perfect."
Vonn looked out of it after the first run when she came in third place, but she was nearly perfect the rest of the way, leaving Maze 0.08 seconds behind Vonn. The event is usually a weak one for Vonn, but she took home her first giant slalom win since last March and now has two straight after taking home the downhill last week at Cortina D'Ampezzo.
The win was Vonn's 59th World Cup win overall, only three away from equaling Annemarie Moser Proell's record on the women's side of the sport. The win was even more pronounced since she took a month off of competition after falling ill from an intestinal problem that landed her in the hospital. The break allowed Maze to pull away in the overall standings, but gave Vonn more time to recover.
"A couple of weeks ago, everyone was thinking I was crazy taking this time off," Vonn said. "But I felt my body wasn't ready. Now I am ready."
According to ESPN.com, Maze's closest rival in the GS, Kathrin Zettel, only managed sixth. Maze is 238 points ahead of Zettel with just two GS races remaining this season.
"I had a mistake in the flat part," Maze said. "In my final run, I just had too many mistakes but I am very satisfied with second."
Maze has been the big winner this season so far, taking four of seven giant slalom events.
"I have been working so hard this year for this GS crystal globe," she said. "Now I've won it, I feel freed and can look forward."
The next big event for the skier will be next month's world championships in Schladming, Austria.
Vonn's love life has always been tabloid fodder, with links to other athletes including Tim Tebow. She split from her husband Thomas Vonn in 2011 and now is dominating the headlines with her romance with Woods.
According to reports from Fox News and others, the top golfer is dating the Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn. The report says that the two have been together since November and that they recently took a trip to Antigua in the Caribbean.
This would be the biggest relationship for Woods since he was exposed as a cheater after crashing his SUV near his Florida home on Thanksgiving night after getting into an argument with his wife. It was reported later that he had slept with over 20 women, including a number of cocktail waitresses and porn stars.