The dark side of “grit” in sports

Photo courtesy of Christian Jansky/Wikimedia Commons

Anyone who has played sports in their life knows that an injury can quickly become an athlete’s worst nightmare. Most injuries are minor, and athletes are back to playing within a couple of weeks, but others can alter—or even end—a career. Following the finish of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, conversations turned not just to the medals and records, but to the physical toll elite competition takes on the body.

What often goes unnoticed is that many athletes compete while already injured. In a culture that celebrates the idea of “gritting it out” and criticizes sitting out, it is no wonder that so many athletes end up with even worse injuries than they started with. The pressure comes from everywhere—coaches, teammates, fans, media, and sometimes most intensely from themselves. These Olympics showed us one of the worst cases of this with American alpine skier Lindsey Vonn.

Vonn had sustained an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tear before the start of the Games, and assured fans that she had every intention to compete. That promise quickly turned to peril. On Feb. 8, Vonn crashed 13 seconds into her downhill run and had to be airlifted off the course. She underwent an initial surgery following the crash, taking six hours and requiring plates and screws to treat her complex tibia fracture. 

Sounds like a rough one, right? It gets worse. Vonn announced on Feb. 23 that her injuries went far beyond the complex tibia fracture; she developed Compartment Syndrome due to the trauma from the crash. The Cleveland Clinic describes Compartment Syndrome as a painful buildup of pressure around your muscles. This pressure can be from either bleeding or swelling, resulting in permanent injury if not treated immediately.

Thanks to Dr. Tom Hackett, Vonn’s leg was saved from amputation through a fasciotomy procedure. Vonn praised Hackett, saying, “He filleted it open (and) let it breathe, and he saved me.” Not only did she almost lose her leg, but she also broke her right ankle, required a blood transfusion, and is now bound to her bed. This type of injury is one that not only could have ended her career but also drastically changed her life. 

It is at this point that I am forced to wonder: is it worth it? Believe me, if I had the athletic ability and drive to make it to the Olympics, I would go in a heartbeat, but is it worth losing a leg over? For many competitive athletes, their identity is completely tied to their sport. Instead of allowing themselves time to fully recover, they downplay their injuries, which, as we have just seen with Vonn, can be catastrophic.

At these high levels, the stakes are even harsher. The Olympics only come around every four years, so when the time comes, it makes sense that athletes push themselves past their limits. Also, many, if not all, professional contracts and sponsorships depend on the athlete’s consistent performance, which means once-in-a-lifetime opportunities are forged on the idea that athletes will compete through injuries and hardships.

The culture surrounding sports needs to change. An athlete’s possession of “grit” should not be measured by how much pain they can endure, but by how they rise when faced with adversity. Athletes are not machines, purely created for our entertainment—they are human beings who cannot just be reset and rebooted when they break down.