Lindsey Vonn's 'long road' back still includes ACL repair

U.S. skiing star Lindsey Vonn still faces ACL surgery as she continues to recover from the Winter Olympics crash in February that nearly led to the amputation of her left leg.

"I still have another surgery, so I'm trying to get as strong as possible," she told TNT Sports in an interview on Sunday at the U.S. Open tennis tournament. "And once I get my ACL, then I'll have another long road ahead of me. But for now, I feel great, and I'm very thankful for that."

Vonn, 41, tore her ACL in a World Cup race in Switzerland on Jan. 30, just a week before the start of the Milan Cortina Olympics.

Attempting to compete despite the injury, she sailed off course just 13 seconds into her Feb. 8 run in the women's downhill at the Games and sustained a complex left tibia fracture that has required five surgeries to repair.

The operations on her tibia saved her leg but her ACL has not yet been fixed, she said Sunday.

"I'm hoping that I can have the (ACL) surgery in November, but it'll be in the winter sometime, and then it'll be another nine months until I'm fully recovered from that, so I can't really look beyond that," she said. "I don't really know what the future holds, but like I said, I'm just thankful for where I am right now."

The four-time World Cup season champion and 2010 Olympic downhill gold medalist repeatedly has said she does not know if she will attempt a comeback.

"I may retire. I may never race again and that would be completely fine," Vonn told the Associated Press in April. "But I'm not in a position emotionally to make that decision at this point."

--Field Level Media