For Lindsey Vonn, the injured athlete's aspirations of appearing in the 2014 Winter Olympics aren't just a dream--they're a promise.
Vonn, who tore her ACL and MCL on Feb. 5 at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in Austria, said Monday on NBC's "Today" show that despite what she called the worst injury of her decorated 11-year skiing career, she would be at Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
"I have no doubt I will be ready for Sochi," Vonn said Monday. "Honestly, in a worst-case scenario, if I trained a week before the Games, I'd be fine."
Vonn, who won the gold medal for the downhill skiing event at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, injured her right knee severely when she crashed landing a jump during the Super-G at the world championships.
Recalling the moments of the injury, Vonn described her mindset at the time.
"Basically what happened was I came into that jump going a little bit faster, or I don't know if I just hit the jump wrong, but I feel like I flew a lot further than the other girls,'' Vonn said. "When I landed, the snow was just different. The snow was soft. It was not slick, basically, and my right ski just stopped and my knee buckled. I feel that loose snow was 100% the reason why I crashed."
After she had her surgery on her right knee Feb. 10, Vonn criticized race officials for letting the race go on, even in the face of soft snow and fog around the competition area.
ACL recovery time can range from between eight to 12 months for athletes, depending upon their response time. Still, Vonn, who has won gold at both the Olympics and the World Skiing Championships, said that she'll be ready by next February for another shot at Olympic gold.
"I have plenty of time to be ready for Sochi," she said.
In addition to fielding questions about her injury, Vonn, 28, was asked about the rumors surrounding her personal life--specifically, her allegedly dating golf superstar Tiger Woods.
However, Vonn declined to talk about her love life on-camera. "I'm only two weeks out from the worst injury I've had in my career. At this point, I'm just not going to talk about my personal life," she said.