'He has a bad knee just like me': Lindsey Vonn consoles herself over missing Sochi by bringing home injured rescue dog she picked out with Tiger Woods

  • Vonn picked up her new 9-month-old dog named Leo at Furry Friends Adoption in Jupiter, Florida
  • She told staff she and Woods have adjoining homes nearby and two other dogs Leo can play with
  • The boxer mix was hit by a car and has a bad leg like Vonn
  • Vonn suffered a devastating injury to her right knee in February 2013 and has since had surgery and requires more

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 18:27 EST, 8 January 2014 | UPDATED: 18:30 EST, 8 January 2014

'This definitely brightened my day': Sidelined skier Lindsey Vonn brought home a rescue dog after announcing she can't compete in next month's Sochi Olympics

'This definitely brightened my day': Sidelined skier Lindsey Vonn brought home a rescue dog after announcing she can't compete in next month's Sochi Olympics

Lindsey Vonn cheered herself up on Wednesday after announcing she'll be missing the Sochi Olympics by picking up a new four-legged friend.

The injury-plagued downhill ski champ and her high-profile lover Tiger Woods chose Leo, a 9-month-old boxer mix, because he has injuries just like hers.

'He has a bad knee, just like me,' a limping Vonn told reporters as she led the pup from a Jupiter, Florida shelter.

Vonn first saw the injured dog the day before Christmas Eve, according to WPBF.

At the time, her boyfriend Woods wanted a different dog.

But workers at Furry Friends in Jupiter said she came back annmouncing 'I won!' before adopting Leo.

Down in the dumps Vonn posted a photo of herself with the dog on Twitter Wednesday evening.

'Leo brightened my day,' she wrote. 'Has a bum knee bc a car hit him #bumkneebuddies #puppylove.'

Vonn is widely regarded as the most successful female skier of all time, but a February 2013 knee injury while skiing in Austria has since seriously sidetracked her career.

Until Tuesday, Vonn had remained upbeat nonetheless.

Less than two weeks after reconstructive right knee surgery in February 2013, Lindsey Vonn already was sounding a positive note, saying she was 'really looking forward to Sochi' and defending her Olympic downhill gold medal.

 

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Along the way to the next Winter Games, though, Vonn began facing more setbacks. As she'd move past one, another would surface. In the end, it was too much, even for Vonn, the most accomplished U.S. ski racer in history. Expected to be one of the biggest stars at the upcoming Games, Vonn announced Tuesday — exactly one month before the opening ceremony — she won't be able to race in Russia.

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'He has a bad knee, just like me': The dog Vonn chose was hit by a car and has since needed surgery on his leg

'He has a bad knee, just like me': The dog Vonn chose was hit by a car and has since needed surgery on his leg

'I'm pretty bummed about it': Vonn was terse with a reporter who asked her how she felt about missing Sochi because of her injuries

'I'm pretty bummed about it': Vonn was terse with a reporter who asked her how she felt about missing Sochi because of her injuries

Vonn exhibited a conspicuous limp as she led Leo away from a Jupiter, Florida animal shelter on Wednesday

Vonn exhibited a conspicuous limp as she led Leo away from a Jupiter, Florida animal shelter on Wednesday


In a Facebook posting, Vonn said she is 'devastated' to miss the Olympics, 'but the reality has sunk in that my knee is just too unstable to compete at this level.'

Like many in her risk-filled sport, Vonn has dealt with injuries often, particularly at major events. She withdrew midway through the 2011 world championships because of a concussion. She raced with a severely bruised shin at the last Olympics. She skipped a race at the 2009 worlds after slicing her thumb open on a champagne bottle. She hurt her knee in training and missed a pair of races at the 2007 worlds. She took a scary fall during training at the 2006 Olympics, then left the hospital to compete.

'She's come back. She'll be back,' Vonn's father, Alan Kildow, said in a telephone interview. 'You'll see a lot of Lindsey Vonn in the future.'

Vonn left the 2010 Vancouver Games with two medals: the first Olympic downhill gold for an American woman, and a bronze in the super-G. She is also a four-time overall World Cup champion, by far the most recognized name in Alpine skiing at the moment — and, as it happens, the girlfriend of Tiger Woods.

Withdrawal: Lindsey Vonn and her partner Tiger Woods were together the day before Christmas Eve when the skier first met the kindred spirit canine

Withdrawal: Lindsey Vonn and her partner Tiger Woods were together the day before Christmas Eve when the skier first met the kindred spirit canine

Add it all up, and she would have been the focus of plenty of media coverage in Sochi, certainly a main character in NBC's coverage for a U.S. audience.

'Lindsey gives you great promotional value, and she's an amazing athlete and an amazing story,' said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. 'But there are amazing athletes that are going to be in Sochi, many of which we know, some of which we haven't identified yet.'

 

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To those in the world of skiing, there's no doubt about the sport's most important athlete of late.

'Without Lindsey Vonn, the races are just not the same,' Canadian women's Alpine coach Hugues Ansermoz said last month. 'She just attracts so much interest. When Lindsey Vonn is here, there are more people coming to watch the race, there is more interest on TV, more journalists are interested. And her relationship with Tiger Woods makes even more people interested.'

Complicated surgery: This picture shows Lindsey Vonn and her team as she recovered from her surgical reconstruction of her right knee following her accident in Austria in February 2013

Complicated surgery: This picture shows Lindsey Vonn and her team as she recovered from her surgical reconstruction of her right knee following her accident in Austria in February 2013

Lindsey Vonn of the USA is helicoptered off the course during the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Championships Women's SuperG on February 05, 2013 in Schladming, Austria
Lindsey Vonn of the USA is helicoptered off the course during the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Championships Women's SuperG on February 05, 2013 in Schladming, Austria

Lindsey Vonn of the USA is helicoptered off the course during the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Championships Women's SuperG on February 05, 2013 in Schladming, Austria

Painstaking: In March 2013 - skier Lindsey Vonn published this picture to Twitter that revealed the extent of her injury and subsequent surgery to fix the damage caused

Painstaking: In March 2013 - skier Lindsey Vonn published this picture to Twitter that revealed the extent of her injury and subsequent surgery to fix the damage caused

But Vonn has rarely been present on the elite skiing circuit the past 12 months. She tore two ligaments in her right knee and broke a bone in that leg during a high-speed crash at the world championships last February.

As Vonn neared a return, she re-tore her surgically repaired ACL in a crash during training in November. After finishing 40th, 11th and fifth in a trio of World Cup races at Lake Louise, Alberta, in early December, Vonn sprained her MCL during a downhill at Val d'Isere, France, two weeks later.

'I did everything I possibly could to somehow get strong enough to overcome having no ACL,' Vonn said Tuesday via Facebook.

 

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Great job Lindsay! Tiger is lucky to have you.

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Prayers she recovers and comes to her senses.

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Kudos to her for rescuing the dog! Please use a harness instead of the collar!

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Too many pictures of her and not enough of the dog in this article!

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This is news why???

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Because she turned a negative into a positive. Rare these days.

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When you rescue a dog from a shelter you save two lives...the dog you bring home and the dog that replaces it!

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I love it when celebs do this, it adds such kudos to adopting a dog from a rescue and I am sure encourages other people to maybe offer a poor creature a home They must be nice people to adopt a dog that has been injured,, bless both and doggy of course and I hope he has a long and happy life, safe at last xx

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Wow. That is seriously one cute dog. With all the money she and Tiger have combined, she literally could have afforded an expensive purebred pup, but she instead went out of her way to adopt a little guy in need. To me, that's awesome and I hope more follow in her footsteps!

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Correction! She is NOT the most successful skier of all time. That's Annemarie Moser-Pröll. She may be the most successful downhill skier, a discipline that doesn't require much skiing knowledge, you just ski straight down fast. The best ALL AROUND skier today is Tina Maze. She can ski in every discipline and win. Not to mention she broke a world cup record last year with 2414 points. That's 414 points more than the previous record by Herman Maier. Lindsey Vonn is just a commercialized skier who loses it every time she has to do a turn. She doesn't even compete in technical disciplines.

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Haha. I just LOVE the way you trivialize Lindsay's talent and toss her to one side. I assume that you are a skiing expert then?!

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She needs to take Wob-enyzme. I spent 9 months in SEVERE EXCRUCIATING AGONIZING PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN after knee surgery. That machine that bends your knee at home...was never ordered by the surgeon's staff and I didn't know I was supposed to get it. The surgeon yelled at me for not "exercising my knee in that machine" on my 1st post op visit and I said "what machine?" My knee scarred down, back of calf HARDENED and PAINFUL and on verge of blood clots..knee extremely swollen and hot for months. The surgeon also cut that band holding knee cap in place and it completely snapped causing a painful bruise line all the way down the leg and my knee cap had to be taped to hold it in place. He wanted to replace my knew with an artificial one. Wob enzyme stopped the pain but took 3 days. I am sure she is taking it because from what I've read on it, athletics were the ones first taking it. Wished I had known about it earlier.

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