Vancouver gold medalist skier Lindsey Vonn remained in a Colorado hospital on Tuesday with “severe intestinal pain” that has been bothering her for the past two weeks.
Heinz Haemmerle, Vonn’s ski technician, told the Associated Press that she has been hospitalized “two or three times” for the same pain since arriving for training in Colorado.
Haemmerle said that Vonn has not trained since her second run of the season-opening giant slalom in Soleden, Austria.
“She told me she feels bad and has pain all over her body and that her bones are hurting,” Haemmerle said in telephone interview. “The coaches also don’t know. First they told me we would train again Monday, then Wednesday, now the end of the week.”
Vonn’s successful career has been plagued by injuries over her last several major championships.
In the 2011 world championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, she suffered a mild concussion and bruised shin competing in the downhill.
At the 2009 world championships in Val d’Isere, France Vonn sliced open her thumb on a champagne bottle after winning gold in the super-G and downhill, forcing her to drop out the giant slalom.
She injured her knee in training and missed the slalom and giant at the wolds in 2007.
Vonn was recently rejected by the International Ski Federation after requesting to compete in a men’s downhill race. She had hopes of entering the men’s race at Lake Luise on Nov. 24. in Alberta. Vonn would have had to miss the women’s races in Aspen, Colorado if she would have been granted permission because both races were on the same day.
If the tests go well and the pain subsides for Vonn, her next race will be in Aspen on Thanksgiving weekend followed by women’s events in Lake Louise. The world competition in February in Schladming, Austria is where Vonn wants to be the healthiest.
But for right now that picture is looking gloomy for her.
“There’s been no news, so we’re kind of worried,” Head racing director Rainer Salzgeber said from Austria. “It’s not good.”
