Winter Olympics live: Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn crashes after ACL rupture in women’s downhill

Obviously, the competition is paused while the medics attend to Vonn.

Replays of the crash show her shoulder catch a gate, her left foot twisting out – her left knee is the one with the ruptured ACL – and crashing very hard, rolling over several times. Breezy Johnson and the rest of the American squad look distraught. This is just hideous.

The athletes at the top look absolutely dejected. Their heads are bowed as they wait the lengthy delay for Vonn to be treated and cleared. But the delay will be the last thing on their minds.

Nasty crashes are a peril of the sport, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to watch. Praying for her recovery.

This is just horrific. Vonn is screaming in agony as she’s helped onto a stretcher. We can only hope this is not as serious as it immediately appears.

It takes the medical team an absolute age to get to her. That looked absolutely hideous.

Oh my god, Vonn barely gets out of the gate and crashes hard. The entire arena holds its breath. She isn’t able to get up yet.

The moment we’ve been waiting for… Vonn sets off.

“The snow is really responsive. Keep charging, keep pushing,” is Johnson’s message to her teammate.

Germany’s Kira Weidle-Winkelmann is next to go – can she emulate younger teammate Aicher’s superb run?

It’s not the tidiest line and it’s a tad more conservative than the likes of Johnson… it’s only enough for seventh.

Austrian favourite Cornelia Huetter is up next, a tenth of a second quicker in the top section… but starting to lose time now.

Huetter goes into provisional third, 0.86 seconds slower than Johnson.

Now onto the last racer before Vonn…

Oh my word, she goes four-hundredths of a second slower than Johnson! She went for a risky approach and it got a bit loose in the second half. Johnson breathes a huge sigh of relief in the leader’s chair.

Hugely talented German youngster Emma Aicher, who has been on the World Cup podium in three disciplines so far this season – including winning the St Moritz downhill – is next to go.

She’s going quicker than anyone else so far…