Downhill racer Aleksander Aamodt Kilde dislocated his shoulder in a nasty crash and posted a photograph yesterday with partner Mikaela Shiffrin at his bedside in a hospital in Bern where he had surgery.
Kilde was airlifted by helicopter from the finish area on Saturday at Wengen after crashing into course-side safety fences off the final turn of the longest race on the World Cup circuit.
“I’m here (and being taken care of by the one and only @MikaelaShiffrin),” Kilde wrote on X, adding an emoji of a red heart wrapped in a bandage. “This sport can be brutal, but I still love it.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The photo showed the 31-year-old Norwegian with cuts on his nose, lips and chin but smiling as Shiffrin kissed the side of his forehead.
Kilde has long been a standout racer, a three-time winner at Wengen and the overall World Cup champion in 2020. He is the two-time defending champion in the season-long downhill standings and a two-time medalist at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Kilde was launched off his skis and twisted round in midair before hitting the fences hard more than 2 minutes, 20 seconds into a tiring run. It was the third straight day of racing on an unusually intense program at Switzerland’s most storied ski venue.
“Aleksander has had his shoulder dislocated, and a cut in his calf. He has no fractures, but is bruised,” Norwegian team doctor Marc Jacob Strauss said in a statement published by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, which said Kilde was operated on Saturday evening.
The race program was criticized Saturday by star downhillers Marco Odermatt and Cyprien Sarrazin after organizers scheduled speed races on back-to-back-to-back days on a historically long course.
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