Brave or reckless? Lindsey Vonn’s crash exposes the hypocrisy of elite sport |
Livigno: Sport is supposed to be a form of entertainment. But were we entertained by Lindsey Vonn’s courageous comeback in Cortina d’Ampezzo, or just distraught?
Do we admire her bravery, grit and determination in cracking on without an ACL, at age 41, or do we call her reckless and stupid?
Should athletes know when it’s time to step back from the brink, or is that the responsibility of the people around them?
If you’re looking for the answers to these questions from this column, you’re out of luck. Sorry.
If you want to help us wrestle with them, read on.
Watching the carnage unfold from Livigno Snow Park’s media centre – a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Cortina, where Vonn’s race was taking place – was to observe several waves of shock landing in real time, progressively replacing the anticipation and hope that the American superstar would win a medal in the women’s downhill and provide everyone with a sensational, heartwarming story.
There are rows of desks here, with televisions at the end of them streaming HBO Max, the service showing the Winter Olympics in Italy.
But they’re obviously on a 10-second delay because the first sign that something had gone horribly wrong was when a huddle of blokes off to the side, watching on one of their phones, let out gasps of horror which filled the air with dread.
Lindsey Vonn crashes in Cortina d’Ampezzo.Credit: AP
What had they just seen that the rest of us were about to see?
More people gasped as they gazed into their laptop screens. Then more and more, like little........