She then rolled down the slope with her skis still attached, which is likely to have caused further serious damage to her knee.
Vonn’s Olympic dream now lies in tatters after her audacious bid to achieve the seemingly impossible, an attempt which ended with her being winched up to a rescue helicopter as fans in the stands saluted her with loud applause.
Johnson, who was already in the traditional leader’s chair after her aggressive run down the slope, held her face in shock after Vonn’s crash, which completely changed the complexion of the race.
“My heart goes out to her. I hope it’s not as bad as it looked,” Johnson said.
Already the reigning world downhill champion, Johnson finished in front of Germany’s Emma Aicher by just 0.04s with Italy’s speed specialist, Sofia Goggia, taking bronze in front of home fans.
Goggia had a long wait for her run as she was two down the list from Vonn and she was hampered by the blazing sunshine which softened the previously firm snow on her favourite piste.
But Johnson’s win was overshadowed by one of world sport’s most recognisable faces likely ending her Olympic career in tragic fashion.
Johan Eliasch, the president of the International Ski Federation (FIS), who was watching the race in Cortina, said Vonn’s crash was “tragic, but it’s ski racing, I’m afraid”.
“And I can only say thank you for what she has done for our sport because this race has been the talk of the Games and it’s put our sport in the best possible light.
“I hope she will have a speedy recovery and [be] back on skis very, very soon.”
Vonn had insisted that she could not only compete but win against the world’s best women skiers, some of whom, like Aicher, are nearly half her age.
Vonn said before the Games that she was planning on also competing in the team combined event on Tuesday and the super-G two days later.
But that now looks unlikely, a potential long lay-off perhaps heralding the end of her comeback to skiing in her early 40s.
“That definitely was the last thing we wanted to see,” Vonn’s sister Karin Kildow said to US broadcaster NBC.
“She always goes 110 per cent, there’s never anything less, so I know she put her whole heart into it and sometimes things happen. It’s a very dangerous sport.”
Jacqueline Wiles, the American who finished fourth, just 0.27sec outside the medals, said watching Vonn had been “pretty awful”.
“We have such a sisterhood, we travel with each other on the road, we’re a family.
“To watch someone that you care about so much, it really sucks. My heart kind of just broke for her in that moment. But that’s the inherent risk of this sport.”
Vonn retired in 2019 but returned to competition in November 2024 following surgery to partially replace her right knee to end persistent pain.
Had she not crashed in the last World Cup downhill before the Olympics, in Crans Montana at the end of January, Vonn would have been a serious contender for gold in Cortina.
Vonn had finished on the podium in every previous World Cup downhill race this season, including two victories in St Moritz and Zauchensee, and claimed two more top-three finishes in the super-G.
But retirement looms for Vonn following a disastrous end to one of the biggest stories of the Winter Olympics.
