Vonn gets stitches in her thumb
VAL d’ISERE, France — Lindsey Vonn, the U.S. racer who earlier Monday won her second gold medal of the 2009 world alpine ski championships, cut her right thumb badly enough in a victory celebration that it required four stitches.
She cut it on a champagne bottle included in the initial hillside celebration of her downhill victory, the U.S. ski team spokesman, Doug Haney, said.
Vonn was expected to leave Val d’Isere Tuesday to seek further medical treatment but was expected to return to the championships, Haney said, adding, ”We’re not expecting she’s going to miss any competition.”
Val d’Isere, high up in the French Alps, is a good three hours from Geneva by road. It remained immediately unclear where Vonn would be heading Tuesday. “It’s one of those things where you want it to be looked at by the best person possible to see what’s going on,” Haney said. “Obviously, we’re not in a major metro area up here.”
In addition to her downhill victory, Vonn last week won the super-G. She initially appeared to have won a silver in the combined as well but was later disqualified for straddling a gate.
Vonn won the World Cup overall 2008 title. This season, she again leads the points race.
The women’s giant slalom competition is due to run Thursday, the 12th; the women’s slalom is set to go on the event’s next-to-last day, Saturday the 14th.
Vonn’s cut evoked memories within the U.S. ski scene of 1997, when Olympic gold medalist Tommy Moe was sidelined for most of the season after cutting his thumb on broken glass at a bar in Kitzbuehel, Austria.
Vonn, nursing her injury in a car just moments afterward en route to see a doctor, quipped Tuesday evening, “I think I’m safer going downhill at 85 mph.”
With the thumb wrapped, Vonn was honored Tuesday evening by U.S. team officials — joined by coaches, sponsors, family and friends — at the American hotel. She was presented with, of all things, a magnum of champagne, the traditional gift awarded by Ski Racing magazine to a U.S. world champion.