Olympic skiing legend Lindsey Vonn has confessed to a very wholesome fib. Days after posting that summer was officially over, the 41-year-old champion shared a playful update: she and her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Chance, snuck in a few extra days of warm weather.
“Ok I lied… Chance and I managed to catch a few more days of summer…. And now I’m tired and happy,” Vonn wrote.
The admission lands as classic Vonn: resilient, relatable, and dog-obsessed. After a catastrophic crash just 13 seconds into her downhill run at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in February, Vonn suffered a complex tibia fracture (plus fibula and tibial plateau injuries) that nearly required amputation. She has undergone multiple surgeries, with another procedure planned for November to remove hardware and address her ACL. Despite the long recovery road, she was named to the U.S. Alpine Ski Team for the 2026-27 World Cup season.
Throughout the off-season, Vonn has stayed active and visible—attending the ESPYs, appearing at the U.S. Open, playing tennis, and hard-launching a relationship with French World Cup skier Matthieu Bailet via vacation photo dumps. Chance, the spaniel she adopted in 2025 after losing her longtime companion Lucy (and later grieving the loss of another dog, Leo, around the time of her Olympic crash), has been a constant. She has repeatedly credited him with making life on the road and in recovery better.
The “I lied” post follows earlier Instagram photo dumps in which she declared summer finished while teasing her upcoming 42nd birthday on October 18. Extending the season a little longer with her pup fits the pattern of an athlete who has spent the past eight months rebuilding—not just her body, but a version of normal that includes bike rides, sanctuary time at home in the mountains, and plenty of time with Chance.
For a champion who once dominated World Cup downhill and super-G events (84 career wins, four overall titles, Olympic gold), the caption is pure recovery-mode content: tired, happy, and in no rush to let go of the last sunshine. Fans flooded the comments with hearts and notes about how the pair looks settled, echoing Vonn’s own past posts that “Chance makes life better.”
As the calendar turns toward winter and the next chapter of her comeback, Vonn is doing what she has always done—taking the extra days, the extra chances, and finding joy where she can. Even if it means admitting she stretched the truth about summer.
