“It’s an amazing feeling”
Ösi-Speed-Ass can walk again after a horror accident
Max Franz broke both his legs in November. After weeks in a wheelchair and several surgeries, the Austrian skier gives an update. And shows that he can already take the first steps again.
Published: 3 minutes ago
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Max Franz still has a long way to go.
In mid-November, Austria’s speed ace Max Franz fell heavily during downhill training in Copper Mountain (USA). Shortly before the finish, the 33-year-old got stuck on a gate flag at a double left turn.
“Max took the curve a bit too tight. His body hung on the flag so that it turned and pushed forward,” ÖSV racing director Marko Pfeifer told the “Kleine Zeitung” at the time. “Then it catapulted him completely into the air. A real ‘highsider’. It was really bad luck.”
“It’s an amazing feeling to be able to stand on your own two feet again and take your first steps.”Max Franz, ski racer
Around two and a half months and several operations later, Franz reports on Instagram with an emotional video. “My first steps on the long way back …” he writes. Very carefully and supported on a bar, he gets out of the wheelchair and carefully puts one foot in front of the other. “It’s an amazing feeling to be able to stand on your own feet again and take your first steps,” he emphasizes how much this moment means to him. “It doesn’t look quite round yet, but it’s extremely important for my head.”
Muscles gone after ten days
Two weeks ago things looked different. Franz is still in a wheelchair. “There is not much left of the thighs,” he says to “Today”. “In the first ten days, most of the muscles were gone, it was brutally fast.”
His everyday life consists of putting his feet up and a bit of water therapy. Franz is at home and is supported by his wife Marina. Even then he says that he started with light cycling. As he showed on Instagram a few days ago, he does this in the company of his dogs.
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When you can count on his comeback is completely open. “If you tear a cruciate ligament, you know approximately how long you will be out. If a nerve was severed, no. Officially nobody dares to say anything. Because no one can predict when the left foot will work again,” says Franz. However, he is not thinking of resigning. “I just want to get fit, create a normal state.”
His first steps motivate him even more. “That gives me strength for the next few months of therapy,” he concludes his posting. (bir)
