Macartney to have hip surgery in Colorado

Scott Macartney, fresh off winning his second straight Arctic Man title last week in Alaska, traveled to Colorado this week to have surgery on a torn labrum in his right hip at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail.
    Macartney arrived at the clinic on Tuesday after driving up from Denver. He expects to stay in Vail about four days for the surgery, recovery time and some rehab sessions. He could be off skis for up to eight weeks but expects to return to training much sooner.
    The 29-year-old has had two previous surgeries at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic during a 10-year stint on the U.S. Ski Team
    “I was joking I should get a punch card there, so I get a free one soon,” Macartney said.
SCOTT MACARTNEY, fresh off winning his second straight Arctic Man title last week in Alaska, traveled to Colorado this week to have surgery on a torn labrum in his right hip at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail.
    Macartney arrived at the clinic on Tuesday after driving up from Denver. He expects to stay in Vail about four days for the surgery, recovery time and some rehab sessions. He could be off skis for up to eight weeks but expects to return to training much sooner.
    Julia Mancuso had surgery to repair a torn labrum last off-season. She rebounded to have the best season of her career. Click here to watch Mancuso talk about her rehab in a video shot by Rival Films.   
    The 29-year-old Macartney has had two previous surgeries at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic during a 10-year stint on the U.S. Ski Team
    “I was joking I should get a punch card there, so I get a free one soon,” Macartney said.
    Coming off the best season of his World Cup career in 2005-06, Macartney struggled much of this season after a strong start at Beaver Creek, where he finished eighth in the downhill. Macartney said he felt pain and tightness in the hip as early as last November during the team’s training camp in Colorado. By the latter part of January, Macartney said the pain had become more intense despite rest and plenty of stretching.
    “It started to hurt quite a bit and I knew something was wrong with it because I was doing rehab on it and resting it and trying not to aggravate it and it kept getting worse and worse,” he said. “That’s a pretty good indication, after listening to your body for a lot of years, that you know something’s not right.”
    Macartney said he doesn’t remember a specific crash or incident that sparked the hip pain but suspects a season full of challenging weather, snow and course conditions likely worsened the wear and tear.
    “It turned out to be a pretty rough season in terms of course conditions,” he said. “It was kind of a rough year on body parts in general, but definitely by the end of January I was doing lot of rehab but I was realizing it wasn’t just tightness, there was something going on in there.”
    Despite the pain, Macartney persevered and showed flashes of the racer who finished second last season in a super G at Garmisch and 15th in the Olympic downhill.  He finished 13th in a downhill at Garmisch in late February, 11th in super G at the Canadian nationals, and finished top six in two downhills and the super G at U.S. nationals in late March.
    “I kind of limped through the last part of the season. I had OK results,” he said. “It’s hard to say how much [the hip] affected me. More the pain than anything else.
    “By U.S. nationals it was pretty bad,” Macartney continued. “After I was done with the super G it was tough to just walk around and ski a little bit. I was really just babying it the whole time through nationals.”
    Macartney said he took a good break after nationals to rest before stepping back into the skis for the Arctic Man, which combines downhill and uphill skiing with a snowmobile-driving partner. He said the hip held up “OK” despite dealing with slushy snow and speeds he estimated were more than 90 mph at times.