Savoring what elite athletes can do that we cannot
United States' Lindsey Vonn speeds down the course as she trains for the alpine ski at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday. Credit: AP/Marco Trovati
Elite athletes are different from you and me. Their physical abilities are simply beyond our grasp.
We are reminded of this every so often. Like this weekend, when the Winter Olympics begin in Italy and the professional football season concludes in Santa Clara, California.
The athleticism in both forums will be extraordinary. In every discipline, elite athletes do things we cannot. That is part of the attraction. It also is part of the deal they make with us and that we make with them. They push themselves to extremes to do amazing things, and they receive from us fame and adulation — and, for a lucky few in a small number of sports, incredible riches.
We revere those who go to the limit. They are our sporting gods, which in this and many other cultures makes them as close to mortal deities as it gets. But the toll — and the sacrifices — can also be extreme.
Consider Lindsey Vonn. The American Alpine skier is one of her sport's all-time greats, despite a series of injuries that forced her to retire in 2019. "Physically, I've gotten to the point where it doesn't make sense," she said then.
But she returned to racing last season with a titanium implant in her right knee. And this season, at age 41, she's been dominant. In eight World Cup races, her worst finish was fourth. She won two of five downhills, her specialty. The older Vonn was somehow the Vonn of old. Then she crashed again, in Switzerland last weekend, and tore the ACL in her other knee.
And yet, she still plans to ski in these Olympics, beginning with Sunday's downhill. She says she'll wear a knee brace, and some orthopedists cite various biomechanics principles and Vonn's supreme conditioning to say she could power through the races. The more interesting question is: Why?
"This would be the best comeback I've done so far," Vonn said at a news conference in Cortina.
She's right, but the tell is in her last two words: So far. There could be more comebacks ahead, in other words. She's still not ready for the last goodbye.
Success at that level can be intoxicating. The pursuit is addictive. Many of us get it. We have similarly fierce passions, and similarly devout dedications to some avocation or another. The difference is that we typically don't have such a short shelf life. Our pursuits can last a lifetime.
Elite athletes inevitably are betrayed by their bodies. For many of us, the indignities of aging and physical stress are not essential to our identity. For an elite athlete, they can be lethal.
Consider the Super Bowl. The crowds, the massive TV audience, the hype, the agility and violence on the field make it our nation's biggest spectacle. But the average career of an NFL player is 3.3 years; for running backs, it's less than 2.6 years. And several studies of former NFL players who donated their brains to a brain bank after they died found that more than 90% had the progressive, degenerative brain disease known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), caused by repeated impacts to the head.
On this weekend, it's worth recalling the guiding spirit for elite athletes — the Olympic motto. Faster, higher, stronger. The goal is pure. But there is no end to the pursuit, no ultimate achievement. For elite athletes, there is always another record to break, a faster time, a higher height, a heavier weight. And so you go on. As Vonn said, "I'm still here. I'm still able to fight. I'm still able to try."
As we savor the magic and the beauty and the ferocity of these competitions, let's remember: in pushing to the limit, one often exceeds it.
Columnist Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
