It's onto the downhill for Lindsey Vonn. The American skiing star failed to medal in the women's super-G on Saturday in South Korea -- or Friday night for those of you watching at home in the United States -- after making a slight bobble on the bottom of the course and skiing off line into some soft snow.
And in men's figure skating, Nathan Chen delivered history, landing five of his six quad jumps land the highest score of the night in the free skate. Alas, he finished off the podium, in fifth, with his 17th-place showing from Thursday night's short program proving too much to overcome for a medal.
For highlights of all of Friday night's primetime NBC drama, check out the recap from our live blog:
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American alpine skier Lindsey Vonn sent a message to the internet trolls who bombarded her with abuse after she missed out on a Winter Olympics medal on Saturday.
Trolls, including some of President Donald Trump’s supporters, tweeted hateful messages at the 33-year-old four-time Olympian after she placed sixth in the women’s super-G event. Their comments were in apparent retaliation for Vonn’s criticism of Trump last month.
Julie Foudy, the former U.S. women’s national soccer team captain, spotted the offensive tweets and shared this message of support for Vonn:
I just spent last 20 min's reading thru tweets directed at @lindseyvonn. Sickened & disgusted once again by the lack of humanity that engulfs our country. She just raced her damn heart out & Trump supporters gloat/cheer/celebrate her inability to medal. Is this what we've become? — Julie Foudy (@JulieFoudy) February 17, 2018
Vonn replied that “not everyone has to like me but my family loves me and I sleep well at night.”
It’s ok Julie. Not everyone has to like me but my family loves me and I sleep well at night. I work hard and try to be the best person I can be. If they don’t like me 🤷🏼♀️ their loss I guess... Thank you for the support🙏🏻❤️ https://t.co/EaySJE7QAe — lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) February 17, 2018
“I work hard and try to be the best person I can be,” Vonn added. “If they don’t like me, their loss I guess.”
Vonn won two medals, a gold and a bronze, at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. A knee injury prevented her from competing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Her measured response to the critics earned plenty of praise:
You always be a champion, Lindsey. No matter what people says, your name is in the Olympic History, your legacy to Alpine Skiing is incredible! — Esporte pelo Juva (@EsportePeloJuva) February 17, 2018
I love you hun! 😍😍😍 — Marek Szkolnikowski (@mszkolnikowski) February 17, 2018
Vonn said it was “frustrating” to lose out in the super-G event, but she was “proud of the way” she “attacked the course.” Czech athlete Ester Ledecka won a surprise gold.
Frustrating to be so close to the podium and to have made such a big mistake...but that’s ski racing. I’m proud of the way I skied and how I attacked the course. I gave it my all and came up short. That’s life. Now it’s on to the Downhill! 💪🏻 — lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) February 17, 2018
“She could never put it all together,” Italy’s Sofia Goggia, who finished 11th Saturday, said of Ledecka. “But today she did.”
Ledecka cruised across the finish line, and a giant No. 1 flashed next to her name. A dumbfounded crowd at first seemed stunned silent.
Veith said, “My first reaction was, ‘Is this possible?’”
The crowd began to cheer, growing louder every few seconds. Ledecka remained still and did not react, waiting for the scoreboard correction.
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“Nothing was happening, and everybody was screaming,” Ledecka said afterward.
Her time did not change, and she remained at the top of the leaderboard. Slowly, she skied toward an area adjacent to the finish, where she was feted as the race winner.
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Soon, her unforeseen victory lit up the internet, and a report circulated that she was using a used pair of skis borrowed from the Olympic giant slalom champion Mikaela Shiffrin’s supply.
Eileen Shiffrin, Mikaela’s mother and coach, disputed this. She said Ledecka had most likely chosen her skis from a batch the manufacturer Atomic provided to a number of racers. Ledecka said she always chose skis that had been used by other racers.
Whisked to a news conference, Ledecka kept her ski goggles on her face as she answered questions from the news media. Asked why she did not remove her goggles, she giggled and answered, “Because I was not as prepared as the other girls that would be at the ceremony.” Then she explained that she did not have on any makeup.
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Ledecka, who has both an Alpine coach and a snowboarding coach, was scheduled to compete in the snowboarding parallel giant slalom next week. But after her victory Saturday, she said she might change her plans. “Maybe my skiing coach will be a little bit pushy after today,” she said.
Ledecka could also enter Wednesday’s Alpine downhill. Last December, she finished seventh at a World Cup downhill at the Lake Louise resort in Alberta, Canada.
Throughout her news conference, Ledecka seemed less astounded that a ski racer who splits her time on the snowboarding pro circuit could win an Olympic Alpine gold medal than her inquisitors. Asked to explain how she could be good at both, Ledecka responded:
“Well, it’s down a hill, both of them, right? That’s the basics.”
When the room broke out in laughter, she yelped, “Well, it’s true.”
Vonn was clearly impressed by Ledecka.
“I wish I had as much athleticism as her,” she said. “To be a snowboarder and win is pretty darn impressive.”
After a long Winter Olympics absence, Lindsey Vonn — the most decorated female skier of all time — failed to take home a medal on Saturday morning (Friday evening stateside) in her first Olympic event in eight years.
Vonn, 33, made her highly anticipated 2018 Winter Olympics debut at the women’s Super-G, aiming to become the third American athlete with three career Olympic alpine-skiing medals.
But her dream was dashed when, first to compete, she set the time at 1:21.49, which was soon bested by several competitors.
“I did the best I could,” she said later. “I’m happy with my performance. It might not be a medal, but I definitely gave it everything I had.”
Commentators said they could see Vonn mouthing “I tried” after her run, according to Sports Illustrated.
Vonn will have another chance to medal, in the downhill event, later in the Games.
“I’ve had a roller coaster the last eight years with so many injuries, but I’m here, I’m healthy,” she told reporters on Saturday. “I have two more races left, so I hope those will go a little bit better.”
The competition came eight long years after Vonn took home gold (downhill) and bronze (Super-G) in the 2010 games in Vancouver, making her the only returning Olympic Super-G medalist among her competitors.
Keep Following PEOPLE’s Complete Coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics
Along with Vonn, Switzerland’s Lara Gut — who won bronze in downhill at the Winter Olympics in 2014 — was among the athletes going for gold in the speed event, where the winner is decided by just a single run.
Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin — the 22-year-old skiing phenom who disappointingly came in fourth in the alpine skiing slalom a day earlier, after winning gold the previous day in the giant slalom — decided to sit out the Super-G, which would have been her third continuous day of racing, to rest.
However, she tweeted good luck to competitors shortly before their first runs.
Wishing our girls good luck in the Super-G today! Cross your fingers that the wind dies down for a fair race!! 🤞🤞🤞🤞 #teamUSA — Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin) February 17, 2018
Racers Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein, Johanna Schnarf of Italy, Anna Veith of Austria, and Nicole Schmidhofer of Austria, all came in as major threats to Vonn’s chance at gold.
Vonn — who has 28 Super-G races in her career — was the first racer to hit the slopes.
Saturday’s performance was the first time she has skied on Olympic snow in eight years. She missed the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, when she seriously re-injured her reconstructed right knee on the slopes in 2013, forcing her to watch the competitions from a television screen.
Vonn, who has faced a number of injuries through her career — including two torn ACLs, two concussions and multiple broken bones — then crashed while training in Colorado in November 2016, causing her the worst injury of her career: a fractured humerus bone in her right arm, which left her unable to move her right hand.
She told PEOPLE in September that the injury frightened her like no other before it.
Clive Mason/Getty
“I got out of surgery and I asked the doctor if he had put a nerve block in my arm because I couldn’t move my hand — and he said he hadn’t,” Vonn, who holds 81 World Cup wins, told PEOPLE. “It was terrifying. That was the first injury that really scared me. I could have been permanently damaged. It’s scary to think it wouldn’t have just been my career that was over. I’m a pretty fearless person, but it definitely shook me for a moment — just a moment.”
She didn’t fully recover until June, but it was just in time to prepare for the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea — and she qualified for Team USA last month. Before making her debut, Vonn sat down with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie to discuss what her head was at before her debut.
“I am very anxious right now, it’s been a lot of days over here in Korea without racing and I need to get going,” she told on the Today show. “I feel like a caged bull for the last week and a half and all I want to do is be set free so I can get my energy out.”
Though she would be facing dozens of younger competitors in these Olympics, Vonn made it clear that she didn’t see her age as a problem.
“I have a lot more experience. I’ve been through this a few times, and I’ve already won Olympic gold, so I’m not nervous,” she said. “I don’t feel the pressure, I know the routine. And I think being older gives me an advantage, so I’m not worried about the young guns just yet.”
She added: “I’m mentally stronger, I believe in myself a lot more, and I know what my body is capable of.”
The day before her debut, Vonn sent out a touching tweet dedicated to her grandfather, who she says was an invaluable part of her upbringing.
Tomorrow it’s game time! I will give it everything I have with no regrets. This is for my Grandpa! I have bib # 1 and start time is 11am here so 9pm est. Watch it live on @nbc . #allformyGrandpa 🙏🏻❤️ #allornothing — lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) February 16, 2018
RELATED: Lindsey Vonn on Racing Against Men and Postponing Retirement: I Want to Be Pushed ‘Literally to My Maximum’
During her NBC interview, Vonn expanded on the importance of her grandfather and father’s influence, saying they helped to give her the strength to persevere.
“It’s a family thing, it comes from my grandfather, and my father as well, it’s a certain grit, where there is no word quit,” she said. “Failure is not in my dictionary.”
After her race on Saturday, she said, “I’m skiing for him. He’s been such a big inspiration in my life. It’s hard for me that he’s not here. I wish he was. I ski with his ashes. I just want want to win for him.”
Vonn will compete in the downhill (on Wednesday local time) and combined (on Friday local time) next week. But once that wraps-up, it’s unlikely Vonn will return for another Olympics — though not for lack of desire.
“It just depends on my knee,” she said after competing in the Super-G. “I love ski racing. I want to keep racing forever. Unfortunately, my body is not the Terminator. I can’t take as many beatings as I used to.”
Still, that doesn’t mean she isn’t looking at other options.
“I have some friends that are actors and actresses,” Vonn told NBC before mentioning one in particular: Dwayne Johnson. “He said he’s going to help me after the season and I’m going to follow him around a little bit and see if it’s [acting] really something that I would potentially be able to do.”
