Aksel Lund Svindal had, at one stage, looked like he might walk away with this year’s overall World Cup.
Instead the Norwegian skier was left struggling to walk off the slopes after a high-speed crash on Kitzbühel’s notorious downhill at the weekend, rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee to rule him out for the rest of the season.
Immediately after the crash, Svindal tried to make light of the setback. Writing on Instagram, he said: “Walk it off!! Well, doesn’t really work that way. But it was worth a try…”
Svindal, who still leads the standings — though he looks likely to be quickly surpassed by closest rival Marcel Hirscher in the coming days — was one of three skiers to fall at the same point on the Streif course.
The 33-year-old Norwegian, who missed the entire 2015 season following an Achilles injury, crashed out on a compression near the bottom of the course ending up in the safety netting.
With former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the crowd watching on, Austrian duo Hannes Reichelt and Georg Streitberger also crashed at the same spot.
Svindal joked that he and Streitberger, who suffered a similar cruciate injury, had decided who underwent surgery first with a game of paper, scissors, rock.
“Aksel ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee. He’s in the process of being operated on. His season’s over,” Norwegian ski federation official Claus Ryste told Norway’s broadcasting corporation NRK.
“He’s out of action for between nine and 12 months,” added Ryste. “We are well experienced in this type of thing but it’s a long process. We know he’s in the best of hands.”
Streitberger’s season is also over with a torn anterior cruciate ligament while Reichelt is expected to be out for three weeks after suffering serious bone bruising.
The seriousness of Svindal’s injury denies ski fans what had been a pulsating battle at the top of the standings with Hirscher.
