Olympic downhill skiing champion Lindsey Vonn, one of the biggest attractions in winter sport, will miss next month's Sochi Games because she requires surgery on her injured knee.
The 29-year-old American says she's devastated and did everything she could to get strong enough to overcome having no ACL but the reality has sunk in that her knee is just too unstable to compete at this level.
Vonn, a four-times overall World Cup champion and the standout name in women's Alpine skiing, badly injured her right knee in a world championship super-G in February.
She hurt her knee again while training for the season-opening World Cup downhill at Beaver Creek, Colorado but appeared to be back on track after racing at Lake Louise, Alberta.
