World Cup Woes

Only one week into the season and we've already seen a handful of ups and down. Lets start with the bad news first. In the first race we lost one of our most promising young teammates, Erik Fischer, in the Downhill at Lake Louise. He was skiing well on his way to the best performance of his young career when he flew off of the finish jump, landed on the tails of his skis and couldn't recover. He was going about 70 mph when he fell and tore his ACL, thus ending his season. Erik undergoes ACL reconstructoin surgery tomorrow.

Secondly, we lost the overall World Cup champion, Aksel Svindal, yesterday in a Downhill training run in Beaver Creek, Colorado (the second world cup on the tour). Aksel sat back off of the biggest jump on course, which propels you 150 feet down the moutain 20 feet in the air. He landed on his back, went into the safety net, and ended up cutting himself badly on one of his skis. He also broke a few bones in his face and will likely be out for the season. This is an unfortunate reality in our sport.

Onto the good news!! Marco Sullivan, one of my best friends on the team scored his first World Cup podium as he was 2nd in the Downhill last Saturday. He just returned from training injury this fall when he broke his heel off of a big jump in Portillo, Chile. It was a great way to start off the season and I'm looking forward to joining him on the podium soon!

Check out some pics from Lake Louise....

Lake Louise Podium...Marco Sullivan 2nd Place!...
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11 Comments On: "World Cup Woes"

 
"He also broke a few bones in his face... this is an unfortunate reality in our sport."

I'm glad my day job is less dangerous.

2-time Olympians Marco Sullivan and Scott Macartney

Sweet pics man, the injuries are harsh...

View of Lake Louise under a full moon

Great pics!

Do you get nervous before runs when you know that other people have hurt themselves badly that day on the same trail?

I'd be lying if I said I didn't get nervous before a downhill race. The start is always very intense especially if a few guys have crashed before you. Fortunately our coaches never tell us that somone has been hurt so we can stay focused on our run.

It's cool that you're not afraid to admit that you get nervous, and it's smart that your coaches don't tell you about crashes... though I imagine word spreads quickly anyway, right? Or are you pretty isolated?

The word does spread pretty quickly but they try to keep any crashes on the down low. We're seasoned enough to know that when there is a long hold during the race or training run, somebody most likely crashed.

Truly amazing. Are injuries always this frequent and severe?

Almost every athlete on the World Cup has torn their ACL or broken a few bones among other things. It comes with the territory but frequency and severity varies. I personally have torn my ACL twice and broken my leg.

Yeah, the torn ACL is downhill skiing's version of turf toe.

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