Lindsey Vonn

Lindsey Vonn sat on a stone wall at the U.S. Open golf tournament in June waiting for her boyfriend, Tiger Woods, to finish his second round. Four months after major knee surgery, Vonn, the defending Olympic ski champion in the women’s downhill, was already looking eight months ahead.

“You bet Tiger is coming to the Olympics with me,” Vonn said. “He knows how important the Olympics are to me. Everybody does. I’ve pushed myself forever for the Olympics. Knee surgery is just one more hurdle.”

But in November and December, Vonn stumbled and seriously re-injured her reconstructed right knee on the ski slopes.

On Tuesday, a devastated Vonn conceded that she could not safely compete in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, and withdrew, a departure that will rob the United States of much of its star power next month.

One of the best-known winter sports athletes in the world, a celebrity enhanced by her yearlong relationship with Woods, Vonn said through her publicist that she would have surgery soon to repair the knee damage, sidelining her for the rest of the ski racing season.

Vonn’s exit will deprive the U.S. broadcaster NBC of one of its best storylines — the against-the-odds comeback of a telegenic star with crossover appeal.

Adding to the drama would have been Vonn’s previous travails at the Olympics. She had a horrific crash in training just days before the start of the 2006 Turin Olympics and limped out of the hospital with multiple injuries, only to fall short of a medal.

In 2010, despite a painful leg injury, she became the first American to win the women’s downhill and added a bronze medal in the super-G.

Vonn will be 33 years old when the next Winter Olympics are contested, in 2018. Vonn has for years guaranteed only that she will compete until the 2015 world championships in Colorado, but last summer she admitted that she had been thinking about 2018.

“You never know, but 33 isn’t that old for a ski racer anymore,” she said with a smile.

Vonn tore her anterior cruciate and medial collateral knee ligaments in a tumbling crash 11 months ago at the world championships but had appeared ahead of schedule in her recovery for the Sochi Olympics until a training crash in Colorado on Nov. 19. At that time, she said that she had partially torn her rebuilt anterior cruciate ligament and would still be able to participate in the Olympics. Seventeen days after the training spill, Vonn returned to racing in a World Cup downhill at Lake Louise in Canada. She raced three times, finishing 40th, 11th and fifth, and said she was encouraged. But the Lake Louise course was flat by World Cup standards and not a true test.

On Dec. 21, Vonn entered a more demanding World Cup downhill in Val d’Isère, France — with Woods at the bottom of the hill watching. About halfway through the course, her right knee buckled as she tried to make a high-speed turn and she skidded off the course. After the race, for the first time, Vonn admitted that her ACL injury was more severe. She said the ligament had been completely ruptured.

She has not been on skis since.

On her Facebook page Tuesday, Vonn wrote: “I am devastated to announce that I will not be able to compete in Sochi. I did everything I possibly could to somehow get strong enough to overcome having no ACL, but the reality has sunk in that my knee is just too unstable to compete at this level. I’m having surgery soon so that I can be ready for the world championships at home in Vail next February. On a positive note, this means there will be an additional spot so that one of my teammates can go for gold. Thank you all so much for all of the love and support. I will be cheering for all of the Olympians and especially team USA!”

Vonn, who competed in the 2002 Olympics as a 17-year-old, has won the overall World Cup title four times. With 59 World Cup victories, she is three short of the career record held by Annemarie Moser-Pröll.

Vonn’s departure will turn the focus of the U.S. television coverage to other American racers, two of whom are gold medal favorites in their events. Foremost in that group is Ted Ligety of Park City, Utah, who won three events at the 2013 world championships. Ligety will be the runaway favorite in the men’s giant slalom, which he has dominated for years. At last year’s world championships, he also won the super-G and the super-combined.

In the women’s slalom, 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin of Colorado is the reigning world champion. Shiffrin has also had two top-three finishes on the World Cup circuit in giant slalom this winter, securing her status as a gold medal contender in that event as well.

Shortly after Vonn announced her withdrawal Tuesday, Shiffrin wrote on her Twitter account: “It’s hard to swallow that lindseyvonn won’t be competing in Sochi, but I’m incredibly impressed at her determination. She’s a true hero.”

Vonn’s absence will also be an opportunity for the American Julia Mancuso, who won two silver medals at the 2010 Olympics and was a surprise gold medalist in the giant slalom at the 2006 Torino Games.

As for Vonn, who has multiple high-profile corporate sponsors, it would not be a surprise if she surfaced as a commentator during the Sochi Olympics for NBC, with whom she has always had a close association. It is far from the role she expected to have, but as she also said at the U.S. Open in June: “I don’t give up easily. I have plans to be around for a while.”