Among the trophies in Lindsey Vonn's extensive collection is her very first, awarded to her for a 5th-place finish in a race at Afton Alps in Washington County, Minnesota, on Feb. 22, 1992. She was 7 years old. The trophy is just a few inches tall, a slice of white marble supporting a shiny gold skier angled downward toward the front of the base, hands thrust forward. A downhiller in flight. The image conveys speed first, but also freedom. "I love going fast," Vonn said on the day, eight years ago, when she first showed me the trophy. "I love pushing myself to the limit." And that was always going to be her athletic epitaph.

This morning in Cortina d'Ampezzo, just a few minutes before noon local time in Italy, Vonn stood coiled in the start house at the top of the Olympia delle Tofane, one of her favorite places on earth. Now 41 years old, far beyond the age at which people do such things. She would be the 13th starter in the downhill at the Milan Cortina Olympic Games. Vonn leaned forward, first grimacing, and then taking deep breaths and exhaling through full cheeks 14 times; beneath her a right leg with a partial knee replacement and a left with no anterior cruciate ligament. It was all very dramatic, the final act of a play that captivated — and in some ways divided (because everything does nowadays) — the sports universe and far beyond.

But this two-year comeback, and the comeback within the comeback, was also something much simpler: A ski racer trying to once again be, metaphorically, the little girl on the trophy. And the little girl that won it. Skiing free and fast.

She lasted just 13 seconds, give or take a few tenths. Vonn pushed out, skated five times to create speed and then dropped into a tuck, for more speed. She glided gracefully around a left turn, floated over a small jump and then weighted her left ski, turning right into another small takeoff. But she had chosen a hyper-aggressive line, very on brand for Vonn but a fatal mistake; she clipped the fourth right-sided gate on the course just as she went airborne, was spun sideways in the air, landed violently with her skis perpendicular to the fall line, bounced hard on her head and shoulders and came to stop in the middle of the course, skis splayed awkwardly. She screamed, and was heard. And heard.

Ten minutes later a yellow rescue helicopter hovered overhead. Vonn was loaded onto an orange sled, tethered to the chopper and lifted into the bluebird sky and disappeared behind the towering Dolomites. It was her second airlift in nine days, after the downhill crash in Crans-Montana in which she ruptured her ACL. Thirteen years ago she crashed at the World Championships in St. Anton, Austria, 152 miles northwest of Cortina, on another of the many mountains where Vonn made her living, and her life. She blew out her right knee in that crash, the one that was ultimately partially replaced, and was airlifted that day as well. She remembered the moment in an interview we did a few weeks later: "All I could see was the sky. All I could feel was pain."

This is painful and complicated.

As Vonn lay in snow, a quest ended and a damaged body further damaged, American Breezy Johnson, 30, sat at the bottom of the hill in the leader's chair. Johnson would eventually win the gold medal on the same course where her knee was wrecked four years ago, a performance deserving of telling and celebration, but which would be unfairly overwhelmed by Vonn's story (and would have regardless of Vonn's performance). Yet she offered only empathy. "I can't imagine the pain she's going through," said Johnson. "And it's not just the physical pain. We can deal with the physical pain. But the emotional pain is something else. I wish her the best and I hope this isn't the end." (Johnson is the second American woman to win an Olympic downhill; the first was Vonn, in 2010).

As Vonn lay in the snow, skiers waited on top for 20 minutes before their runs, while a gorgeous midday sun subtly warmed and slowed the course, tilting fairness away from them. This is something, like wind or shadows, that just happens in ski racing. But it stings. Sofia Goggia of Italy, racing on home snow two days after lighting the Olympic flame in Cortina, came down two racers after Vonn and said later, "I know that today's situation for me, after Vonn's fall, it was not looking good, because today it is very hot." Goggia won the bronze medal, .59 second behind Johnson. American Jackie Wiles, 33, one of Vonn's closest friends, came down two skiers after Goggia and finished 4th, .27 seconds behind Goggia. They might have both have been faster. (Wiles did not touch that topic. "My heart hurts for Lindsey," Wiles said. "We're such a tight group. Lindsey has been a huge mentor for all of us. Seeing her go down like that, it really sucks.")

As Vonn lay in the snow, harsh takes bubbled up on social media and beyond, suggesting variously that Vonn had unfairly taken a spot from another deserving U.S. skier, that her coaches and medical staff had failed her by allowing her to race, that she had allowed her ego to risk her health. It's all abjectly unfair and inaccurate, but that is the way of the modern social contract, anger laid on top of nihilism. Fights picked just to fight. Now that chorus uses outcome to reverse engineer analysis of the decision. As if Vonn's life is theirs and not her own.

You should know the full back story by now: Two years ago Vonn underwent partial right knee replacement surgery in order to live and ski — not ski race — painlessly. It went so well that Vonn began to consider a comeback, at first slowly and then not slowly. She made a podium last year at the World Cup finals in Sun Valley, Idaho, and this year won two World Cup downhills, in St. Moritz and Zauchensee, Austria. The power of those two victories should never be lost; Two wins at age 41, with one knee made half of titanium and plastic. It is astonishing. She was the Olympic favorite. She was, again metaphorically, that little girl on the trophy.

Then she crashed in Crans-Montana, and ruptured her left ACL while pushing the line high on a tricky course. She always pushes the line, seeking speed, fearlessly. As NBC's Steve Porino said today, Vonn's crash "was because of her genetic DNA." The same DNA that has made her successful (more downhill World Cup wins than any other woman), famous, and wealthy, also regularly ripped her body apart, from head to toe. With the Crans-Montana crash and injury, a remarkable story surging toward the Olympic Games was changed. Vonn announced on Feb. 3 that she would put a brace on her newly damaged left knee and race with it. That story swallowed the Olympic Games, and more.

Vonn completed two training runs; if there was doubt about her claim to a starting spot — and there should not have been — those runs erased it. Excepting a wobble on a landing Friday morning, she looked smooth.

But race day is different, for everyone, but especially for someone wired like Vonn. Race day is for speed. For tight lines. For risks. Wearing bib No. 6, early, Johnson tore down the hill, almost Klammer-esque, losing form frequently, but never losing speed. Johnson took a lead of more than a second over Austria's Ariane Raedler, who had started second. Johnson's run was a gauntlet thrown, putting the rest of the field on notice. Starting 10th, Emma Aicher of Germany got within four one-hundredths, and would win the silver. No one else would get closer than Goggia's .59.

Vonn started No. 13, 17 minutes after Johnson. It is possible that if she skied conservatively, taken few chances, she could have simply finished, which would have been a happy ending for the world. Or perhaps a little less conservatively and landed in the top 10. But those are unknowns, and pointless as well, because Vonn would not leave opportunity unseized. She tore into the second turn, seeking speed and her own form of completion, and left 14 minutes later on a rope attached to a helicopter. It was a much too daring line. Porino said on NBC, "There is nothing her 20-year-old self could have done to save that run." Her mistake was strategic, not athletic.

As of early afternoon, the only update on her condition was provided by the U.S. Ski Team, which said, "Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians." Vonn has not spoken or posted.

A year ago I wrote a story for NBC Sports about Vonn's comeback. I'll plagiarize myself by sharing the first paragraph of that story, which I think is central to what took place, not just Sunday morning in Cortina, but over the last two years. She was given a new knee and a second chance.

In her 41st year of life, Alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn has entered into an arrangement under the terms of which she is able to once again do things that she never thought her body would allow her to do again. And so she has thrown herself in. If you were offered that deal, you would do the same thing, wouldn’t you? Given the chance to run again or to jump or to throw; to see clearly, to sing, to dance, to love for the first time or to see a dear friend for the last. Any of those things that time and life take away. You would take that deal, right? But would you throw yourself in? Vonn skied fearlessly fast down steep hills and won more often in her speed specialties than any woman before or since. And she loved it more than she hated the pain, until there was too much pain, and even then loved it still. Ski racing was not about Vonn, it was of her. So she will not waste a second chance.

Did she waste that second chance? She won two World Cup races and finished on the podium in six others, on a partial knee replacement and after a five-year retirement. She inspired fans and others who do not have her talent or courage, but who marvel at it, which is what sports do for us, even when they do not provide happy endings. It was historic, all of it, and it is a shame that Vonn did not make it to the bottom of the Olympia de Tofane, but it is a miracle that she made it to the top.