Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn returned for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics looking to add more medals to her storied collection. However, a scary crash during the women's downhill skiing event on Sunday brought her comeback attempt and Olympic hopes to an end — and her father hopes Vonn's latest serious injury will do the same for her career.

Alan Kildow declared that he would choose for his daughter to once again retire from skiing after her ski pole got caught on a gate shortly into her race, which resulted in Vonn landing awkwardly and breaking her leg. Vonn had to be airlifted from the course in Cortina and was taken to a hospital in Treviso.

“She's 41 years old, and this is the end of her career,” Alan Kildow told The Associated Press' Andrew Dampf. “There will be no more ski races for Lindsey Vonn, as long as I have anything to say about it.”

Kildow and the rest of Vonn's family watched the race and crash from the finish area. Her father, who was also a ski racer and passed the passion down to Vonn, described what it felt like to see his daughter suffer another career-altering injury.

“First, the shock and the horror of the whole thing, seeing a crash like that. It can be dramatic and traumatic. You're just horrified at what those kinds of impacts have,” Kildow said. “You can go into a shock — an emotional, psychological shock. Because it's difficult to just accept what's happened. But she's well cared for. … And the USOC and the US Ski Team have a very, very top-notch doctor with her, and she is being very well cared for here in Italy.”

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Vonn was already competing with a fraction of her health since she “completely tore” the ACL in her left knee during another crash just the weekend before. Despite wanting her to hang it up for good, Kildow still defended his daughter's decision to carry on in the Games after the injury.

“What happened to her had nothing to do with the ACL issue on her left leg. Nothing. She had demonstrated that she was able to function at a very high level with the two downhill training runs,” he explained. “And she had been cleared by high-level physicians to ski.”

The three-time Olympic medalist originally retired in 2019 due to her extensive injury history and partial titanium replacement surgery on her right knee. Vonn started her comeback attempt in December 2024 and had recently made skiing history as the oldest World Cup winner ever.

Kildow confirmed Vonn wouldn't return to cheer on the rest of her US team and would “be going home at an appropriate point in time,” but he also gave his daughter credit for dealing with everything she's been through.

“She's a very strong individual,” Kildow said. “She knows physical pain, and she understands the circumstances that she finds herself in. And she's able to handle it. Better than I expected. She's a very, very strong person. And so I think she's handling it real well.”