By Fran Berkman   From Mashable

The U.S. women’s Ski Team will be without its most prominent star at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia.

Two-time Olympic medalist Lindsey Vonn, 29, announced Tuesday morning that she would forego the competition due to a lingering knee injury. Vonn explained the situation and expressed disappointment in a post on her Facebook page.

Her bio page on the U.S. Ski Team’s site describes Vonn as “the most successful female ski racer in American history.” She nabbed a Gold Medal in the downhill competition and a Bronze in the Super giant slalom or “Super-G” at the 2010 games in Vancouver. She’s the only American woman to ever win the Olympic Gold in the downhill.

Vonn initially injured her knee in February, during a crash at the World Ski Championships in Austria. She underwent surgery to repair two ligaments, the ACL and MCL. While it looked like she might be on track to recover for the Olympics, she re-aggravated the injury in a November training crash.

The Sochi Olympics will start on Feb. 7.

Image: Christophe Pallot/Agence Zoom/Getty Images

Lindsey Vonn

Athlete

I am devastated to announce that I will not be able to compete in Sochi. I did everything I possibly could to somehow get strong enough to overcome having no ACL but the reality has sunk in that my knee is just too unstable to compete at this level. I’m having surgery soon so that I can be ready for the World Championships at home in Vail next February. On a positive note, this means there will be an additional spot so that one of my teammates can go for gold. Thank you all so much for all of the love and support. I will be cheering for all of the Olympians and especially team USA!

XO Lindsey

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Related story:

Russia Tightens Security In Preparation For Sochi Olympics

From Huffington Post

MOSCOW, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Russian forces went on combat alert in Sochi and tightened restrictions on access to the Black Sea resort on Tuesday as part of measures by President Vladimir Putin to ensure security at next month’s Winter Olympics.

Aware that the success or failure of the Sochi Games will help shape his legacy, Putin has increased security in Russia following two suicide bomb attacks in the southern city of Volgograd which killed at least 34 people.

Moscow’s most wanted man, the Chechen insurgent leader Doku Umarov, has urged militants who want to carve an Islamic state in Russia’s south to use “maximum force” to prevent the Games going ahead.

“From January 7, all divisions responsible for ensuring the security of guests and participants at the Games are being put on combat alert,” Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency.

“All security issues for the Winter Olympics are being dealt with at the highest international level.”

Authorities are deploying tens of thousands of police and interior ministry troops to Sochi, where athletes will compete for more than two weeks in the most expensive Olympics from Feb. 7.

From Tuesday, which was Russian Orthodox Christmas, access was being further curtailed into Sochi, where a new traffic scheme has come into operation to give priority to Olympic transport, officials said.

“The restrictions are to make the roads free and easy for spectators, athletes and members of the Olympic family to move around,” a transport directorate said.

The security measures have prompted complaints from locals, whose city has been transformed from a former Soviet-era seaside resort into a metal-and-steel metropolis.

More than 200 people protested against how Moscow has run the Games so far on Sunday, under the banner of: “Natives of Sochi own the Games, not the visitors.”

But Putin, who on Saturday attended a rehearsal of the Games’ opening ceremony in Sochi, has eased curbs on demonstrations, allowing groups to hold some marches and gathering at sites approved by the security services.

Campaign groups, calling for everything from gay rights to political reform, have complained that the ban on rallies, imposed in August as part of earlier security measures, violated the Russian constitution. (writing by Elizabeth Piper, editing by Timothy Heritage)

For more on this story go to:

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