Aksel Svindal meets with reporters

Fresh from having received Norway's Athlete of the Year Award in Hamar, Aksel Lund Svindal has met with friends and the media at Kitzbuehel, vowing to return to World Cup ski racing, but certainly not this year.
    Speaking to reporters during a press conference arranged on by his ski company Atomic, Svindal said the nasty crash he survived in Colorado at the end of November may have hampered his physical conditions, but did not change his attitude.
    Svindal, the defending World Cup champion, was awarded Norway's top sportsmen's prize Jan. 5 and the award was handed to him by childhood idol Kjetil Andre Aamodt.
    Svindal arrived in Kitzbuehel this week and was greeted with a standing ovation as he entered the Atomic press conference.
    "I am me," he said, "and nothing has changed in my attitude. I know what I did wrong. Stuff happens. I am healthy and happy to be here."

FRESH FROM having received Norway's Athlete of the Year Award in Hamar, Aksel Lund Svindal has met with friends and the media at Kitzbuehel, vowing to return to World Cup ski racing, but certainly not this year.
    Speaking to reporters during a press conference arranged on by his ski company Atomic, Svindal said the nasty crash he survived in Colorado at the end of November may have hampered his physical conditions, but did not change his attitude.
    Svindal, the defending World Cup champion, was awarded Norway's top sportsmen's prize Jan. 5 and the award was handed to him by childhood idol Kjetil Andre Aamodt.
    Svindal arrived in Kitzbuehel this week and was greeted with a standing ovation as he entered the Atomic press conference.
    "I am me," he said, "and nothing has changed in my attitude. I know what I did wrong. Stuff happens. I am healthy and happy to be here."
    That is a huge statement. Svindal crash Nov. 27 in training for the Beaver Creek downhill was devastating. The World Cup tour leader at the time sustained several fractures, facial lacerations and a deep cut in the back of his thigh. He was bedridden for days. "I am working out," he told well wishers, saying he was two weeks into active rehabilitation. "I lost about 15kg since my accident," and said he had lost a considerable amount of strength.
    "I will return when I feel strong enough to win races," he told reporters. He said he had not yet returned to skiing.
    "It was my own fault," he said of the crash. "I remember exactly what happened before the crash. And nothing afterwards. It's funny how things can change quickly. One day I was in the best form of my life and the next I am lying in a hospital bed unable to move."