Former champ Alphand injures back in cycle crash

By Published On: June 29th, 2009Comments Off on Former champ Alphand injures back in cycle crash

Luc Alphand, the last French Overall World Cup champion, is once more fighting for a difficult comeback after severely injuring his back Sunday June 28. He suffered a bad crash while riding his ‘enduro’ motorbike in a local race held in the middle of France.

The soon 44-year-old downhiller fell on his head and his back in the last special stage of the 400 km-long ‘Rand-Auvergne’ competition. He was airlifted to the nearest hospital in the town of Clermont-Ferrand where he underwent surgery Monday. The operation, which lasted over four hours, was mainly focused on repairing a couple of broken vertebras, the sixth cervical and the first dorsal vertebrae.


Luc Alphand, the last French Overall World Cup champion, is once more fighting for a difficult comeback after severely injuring his back Sunday June 28. He suffered a bad crash while riding his ‘enduro’ motorbike in a local race held in the middle of France.


The soon 44-year-old downhiller fell on his head and his back in the last special stage of the 400 km-long ‘Rand-Auvergne’ competition. He was airlifted to the nearest hospital in the town of Clermont-Ferrand where he underwent surgery Monday. The operation, which lasted over four hours, was mainly focused on repairing a couple of broken vertebras, the sixth cervical and the first dorsal vertebrae.


“His spine injuries are very serious but we hope Luc can overcome them as he did so often after bad ski crashes,” said his Swiss manager, Ralph Krieger from GPS Performance at Lausanne. “His vertebral column has been traumatized but it seems that his spinal cord has not been wounded,” he said on Monday evening. “It’s now a matter of time until we get more information. He seems to feel his legs and his arms, so we keep our fingers crossed.”

Alphand won a dozen World Cup races during his career including downhill wins at Kitzbühel, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Val d’Isère, Alphand suffered many ski accidents in his career prior achieving his first win at Kitzbühel in 1995, two years after a spectacular crash at Whistler Mountain, Canada.


The 1983 downhill junior World Champion blew-out his knee in that accident and was close to give-up ski racing when he decided to give himself a last chance in 1994. Back on his skis, he decided to give himself a more serious chance to finish his races on his two skis instead of taking too many risks to win at all cost – which often made him crashing, mostly after clocking the best intermediate times. It was definitely the right tactic for him.


“I think I know all the hospitals of the resorts I visited on the downhill tour except the one at Val d’Isère,” he once told reporters. “I needed a lot of time to adjust my tactics and find out that I can be faster than my rivals in skiing at only 90%,” he added.


Alphand captured three downhill World Cup titles and the Overall title in 1997 in Vail, Colorado, where he beat Norway’s Kjetil Aamodt by 34 points after winning four downhill and two Super-G races during the season. He was not without mishap that season having fallen at Sestriere, Italy, during the FIS World Championships. He was 32 and decided it was time to leave the snow scene and take better care of his family at Serre-Chevalier and look for other exciting opportunities.


Within a few years he was successfully driving fast cars, becoming one of the leaders of the impressive Mitsubishi Armada at the famous Paris-Dakar Rally. He won it in 2006, becoming one of the few former French ski racers to excel on the roads after a remarkable career on the snow. Prior to him Jean-Claude Killy celebrated great wins in the late 1960s  in car racing at Monza and the ‘Targa Florio’ in Sicily. Alphand also regularly competed at ‘Le Mans’ with his private team with promising results.


Yet he always took time to get back on his skis and return on the World Cup circuit – as an adviser of the French Ski Team or a commentator of French TV France 2.


The surgeons of the hospital at Clermont-Ferrand are rather optimistic after the operation considering Luc’s excellent physical conditions and the now stable vertebrae column. “Luc Alphand may need to remain here for a least another week but for the moment we can’t give any information on the future of his racing career,” they indicated in an official press release. “His condition is basically stable.” – Patrick Lang



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