Olympic Skiing Great Julia Mancuso Talks Lindsey Vonn’s Comeback ‘Roller Coaster’

The two Americans were teammates and competitors in Games of yore.

Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Vonn were teammates for years, and Vonn’s crash Sunday hit hard. | Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

Throughout their Olympic careers, alpine skiers Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Vonn were parallel faces of their sport in the United States.

Born five months apart in powerhouse winter sports regions—Mancuso in Reno, Nev., and Vonn in St. Paul, Minn.—the two skiers made their Olympic debuts together in Salt Lake City in 2002. In Vancouver in 2010, Vonn won gold in the women’s downhill while Mancuso won silver.

However, Mancuso retired in 2018 for good. Vonn, who similarly walked away from the sport in 2019, returned in December 2024 and put together a remarkable comeback before crashing twice in the last two weeks. Mancuso, speaking to Sports Illustrated on Tuesday on behalf of the Factor Gold Collection, shared her vantage point of the saga.

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“It was definitely a roller coaster,” Mancuso said. “We competed our whole life together from young girls, and I was really excited. I was really excited for the Olympics before she crashed and tore her ACL, so that was the first dip in the roller coaster.”

That first injury took place, unluckily, at the final pre-Olympic World Cup race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland on Jan. 30. Undeterred, Vonn pledged to compete in the Olympic downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, supercharging interest in what was already the Games’ biggest American story.

Behind the scenes, Mancuso was worried.

“I think I was kind of with everyone with their doubts,” Mancuso said. “Knowing her, she’s a very competitive athlete, She doesn’t show all her cards. We’ll just put it like that.”

The four-time medalist was encouraged by Vonn’s practice run—but that encouragement turned to horror seconds into the actual race.

“I thought she could pull off the unimaginable and unbelievable,” Mancuso said. “Watching her crash and going through that was really hard. I think a lot of us shed a few tears for her that day. ... Having such a traumatic exit at the same time as another teammate [Breezy Johnson] winning gold, it was just a day full of emotions.”

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