Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty
The U.S. team just won’t be the same. Gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn won’t be competing at Sochi, she announced on Tuesday, because of knee injury. “I did everything I possibly could to somehow get strong enough to overcome having no ACL but the reality has sunk in that my knee is just too unstable to compete at this level,” Vonn said in a statement. Vonn underwent knee surgery 11 months ago, and she said she is having another procedure soon so she can compete in the World Championships in Vail next year. Vonn, the most accomplished female skier in U.S. history, tore the anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in her right knee and fractured her tibia at the Alpine skiing world championship in Austria last year. She further aggravated the injury in a race in December.