Winter sports stress problems
As he takes stock, the German ski star fights back tears
As of: 11:09 a.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
Frustration with the result – and his own body: Thomas Dreßen only came 42nd on the Lauberhorn descent.
What: REUTERS
Thomas Dreßen is in pain – again. Germany’s top downhill skier becomes emotional after his miserable performance in Wengen. The former Streif winner also complains about the merciless stress. He is far from alone in this.
Ski racer Thomas Dreßen is struggling with physical problems again a few days before the highlight of the season in Kitzbühel. The top German downhill skier is also critical of the busy racing calendar. He felt “shitty,” said Dreßen after the famous Lauberhorn descent in Wengen, where he only finished 42nd on Saturday. “It’s just bitter when your body just doesn’t cooperate anymore,” the 30-year-old explained to BR and fought back tears. He tries everything. But: “It just hurts.”
Dreßen had already lost a lot of time in the upper section of the longest World Cup downhill course at 4270 meters and then slowed down. At the finish he was more than eleven seconds behind the Swiss winner Marco Odermatt. “If you drive into a curve and more or less don’t feel your haunches, it just sucks,” said Dreßen. While driving, he noticed that his knee was giving way. The five-time World Cup winner, who won on the legendary Streif in Kitzbühel in 2018, has had years full of health setbacks – including several operations on his knee and hip.
The legendary Hahnenkamm races are coming up next weekend. Just like in Wengen, there are two runs planned in Kitzbühel. “I think that in general you have to think about what is actually useful,” said Dreßen about the packed World Cup calendar and the enormous strain on the athletes. In the first few years of his career, he “didn’t necessarily have the feeling that we didn’t have enough races. The opposite is the case.” In his opinion, classics would also be devalued by the double events.
Kilde injured after accident
Meanwhile, ski star Aleksander Aamodt Kilde apparently got off less seriously than initially feared after his serious fall in Wengen. The Norwegian suffered a cut in his calf and dislocated his shoulder in the accident shortly before the finish on Saturday, as the Norwegian association announced on Sunday morning. The 31-year-old had already been operated on the evening before in the hospital in Bern, where the helpers had flown him by helicopter. It was initially reported that he had broken his lower leg.
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“He doesn’t have any fractures, but he’s injured,” said team doctor Marc Jacob Strauss. Further details are expected to be announced later today. Kilde himself posted a photo from his hospital bed that morning and wrote: “This sport can be brutal, but I still love it.” His girlfriend Mikaela Shiffrin can also be seen in the picture; The best female ski racer in the world did not compete in any races at the weekend and rushed to Kilde in Bern.
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The accident caused horror, as it affected Kilde, who had dominated downhill skiing in recent years. He in particular was not expected to have problems on the difficult and exhausting Lauberhorn descent in Wengen.
Shortly before the goal, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde crashed into the fence
Quelle: Getty Images/Alain Grosclaude/Agence Zoom
The German head coach Christian Schwaiger is struggling with the racing calendar this year, which demands an extremely large number of competitions and trips from the athletes in a short period of time. “The program we are currently running is insane,” he said. This time in Wengen there were two downhill runs and a Super-G. In a few days we’ll be making the dreaded trek to Kitzbühel.
Former overall World Cup winner Alexis Pinturault from France fell during the Super-G on Friday and suffered a serious knee injury that ended his season. “If we overload the weekends with races, we are inviting really bad things to happen,” warned Schwaiger.
He has the greatest respect for the performance of the two fastest people on Saturday, winner Marco Odermatt from Switzerland and second-placed Cyprien Sarrazin from France: “But the sport lost today.”
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