Can You Ski With a Torn ACL?

Skier Lindsey Vonn said she plans to still compete at the upcoming Milano Cortina Winter Olympics despite sustaining a serious knee injury about a week before her first race.  Vonn, 41, wrote in a Feb. 3 social media post that she “completely” ruptured the ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, in her left knee after crashing during a World Cup downhill event on Jan. 30. She said she also suffered a bone bruise and tears of the meniscus, a piece of cartilage in the knee that acts as a shock absorber. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Despite the injury, Vonn said her Olympic dream “is not over.” Her first Olympic race—the women’s downhill event—is on Sunday, Feb. 8. “After extensive consultations with doctors, intense therapy, physical tests as well as skiing today, I have determined I am capable of competing in the Olympic Downhill on Sunday,” she wrote. Can you ski with a torn ACL? For athletes involved in sports where the ACL, which stabilizes the knee joint, is more likely to be injured, reconstructive surgery and months of physical therapy are typically recommended before a return to the sport, says Dr. Anthony Petrosini, an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center. “If this was a high school or college athlete, the recommendation would be to not compete with this injury,” says Petrosini, who didn’t treat the Olympian. “But Lindsey Vonn is a one of one case. If anybody is going to do it, it’s going to be her.”…

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