VAL D’ISERE, France — Lindsey Vonn has left the World Alpine Ski Championships to have her stitched up right thumb checked by a specialist a day after cutting herself on a champagne bottle.
“If everything goes well, she should return tonight,” U.S. Ski Team spokesman Doug Haney said Tuesday.
Haney would not disclose where Vonn and her husband, Thomas, went. The Austrian press agency APA reported that she was taken to Innsbruck, Austria.
Vonn cut her thumb on a champagne bottle while celebrating her downhill victory Monday night. U.S. Ski Team doctor Jeff Harrison applied four stitches to the cut at the team hotel.
Team officials said they did not expect Vonn to miss her remaining events, the giant slalom Thursday and the slalom Saturday.
Vonn was hurt when she was unable to open a champagne bottle because the cork broke. Someone then used a ski to remove the rest of the cork, breaking part of the bottle in the process. Vonn grabbed the bottle as the champagne poured out, not realizing it was cut.
“I really think I’m safer skiing downhill at 85 mph,” Vonn said Monday. “I’m in a little bit of pain, but this shouldn’t slow me down.”
Vonn was already likely to skip the team event Wednesday.
Vonn also won the super-G that opened the championships, and her downhill victory meant she joined Anja Paerson and Swiss skier Maria Walliser as the only women to sweep the speed races at a world championship.
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