French skier Cyprien Sarrazin ‘stable’ after surgery for crash injuries
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France’s Cyprien Sarrazin taking part in a training session on Dec 27 before the crash, which left him with a subdural haematoma requiring surgery.
PHOTO: AFP
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BORMIO – French skier Cyprien Sarrazin is conscious and in a stable condition after undergoing surgery for cranial injuries suffered in a harrowing crash
The 30-year-old was airlifted to hospital and went under the knife to treat a subdural haematoma on Dec 27, after he slammed into the snow and slid into protective netting while training for the World Cup in Bormio over the last weekend.
“Cyprien Sarrazin is awake and conscious following his operation on Friday evening at the Sondalo hospital near Bormio,” said the FFS in a statement.
“He is in a stable condition and will be kept under observation for the time being.”
Sarrazin enjoyed his best campaign on the World Cup circuit last season, with four victories, including a downhill win at Bormio, but is yet to win in the new term.
He clocked the best time during his first training run on Dec 27 and was leading at the halfway mark during his second on the Stelvio piste – which will host alpine skiing events at the 2026 Winter Olympics – before losing control.
Two other skiers had serious accidents in their second training runs on Dec 27, sparking questions about the preparation of the Stelvio, one of the most difficult on the circuit.
Italy’s Pietro Zazzi was taken to hospital by helicopter after suffering a double leg fracture while Swiss Josua Mettler injured his knee in a crash.
During the World Cup Super-G on Dec 29, Swiss skier Gino Caviezel also suffered a serious crash and had to be airlifted to hospital.
He was the first to descend, but his run lasted barely 50 seconds. At a gate before the San Pietro Jump, the 32-year-old caught an edge, lost a ski, and slid down the steep slope.
Caviezel remained lying on the piste and was treated before being airlifted, with the race interrupted.
Although Bormio is a staple of the World Cup calendar and has twice hosted the world championships – in 1985 and 2005 – it regularly comes in for criticism from skiers.
“They don’t know how to prepare a course. They’ve been preparing courses for 40 years and they don’t know how to do anything other than prepare dangerous slopes,” France’s Nils Allegre told Eurosport.
“They don’t deserve to have the Olympic Games here.”
Race director Markus Waldner of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) defended the course preparations and said conditions ahead of training had affected the snow.
“Now there’s criticism every week: in Gurgl (Austria) the track was too hard, in Levi (Finland) too smooth... We are an outdoor sport,” he said, after a meeting of team captains on Dec 27 in Bormio.
“The organisers do their best to prepare the slopes as well as possible and (the Stelvio) was prepared as it is every year.
“The problem is that on Christmas Day there was a lot of wind, and we know what wind does. It dried the snow from the bottom towards the top, which explains why the snow was not uniform on the 3km run, which is impossible to make uniform.”
French skier Cyprien Sarrazin is airlifted to hospital after crashing on the slopes in Bormio, Italy.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Waldner, who has held his position in charge of the men’s World Cup since 2014, said he believed the main problem is the evolution of equipment that allows skiers to go increasingly faster.
“It’s too aggressive. We’ve reached the limits, there’s no margin left. It’s difficult to find the right skis that work on the hard sections and then on the softer sections. That’s the problem. If you go to the limit, you get what happened on Friday,” he said.
“We need everyone’s cooperation. The equipment manufacturers (need to) listen to us, not the biggest national federations.”
Alexis Monney claimed the first World Cup win of his career with success in Dec 28’s downhill race in Bormio. AFP
