Puchner injured in downhill training run

By Published On: February 9th, 2017Comments Off on Puchner injured in downhill training run

Amongst all the celebrations for the new Super-G World Champions Nicole Schmidhofer and Erik Guay, some athletes are dealing with injuries suffered on the St. Moritz race slopes.

In Wednesday’s downhill training run, Mirjam Puchner suffered a tibia and fibula break in her right leg after falling off a jump early in the course. The Austrian is ranked 20th in the downhill standings this season with her best result coming in Lake Louise, where she earned sixth place. Her lone career World Cup podium was earned last season at World Cup Finals in St. Moritz in the downhill. This is the first major injury of her career.

On the same day, there were several injuries in the men’s super-G race. American Thomas Biesemeyer also crashed and dislocated his left shoulder. Adam Zampa of Slovakia suffered contusions in his heel bone and pelvis. Max Ullrich of Croatian had similar injuries, suffering contusions in his pelvis and shoulder.

Olivier Jenot of Monaco, who ran bib 47, got twisted off a jump and came crashing down on his back. He was transferred by helicopter to a hospital in Chur. He was diagnosed with internal bleeding and underwent a successful surgery. He is in the intensive care unit, and his status is stable.

Earlier in the week, Kazakhstan athlete Martin Khuber suffered a spinal fracture in the men’s downhill training run and underwent surgery to stabilize his second and third cervical vertebrae, and is now in stable condition.

World Championship action continues with men’s and women’s downhill training runs on Feb. 9.

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About the Author: Gabbi Hall

A California native, Gabbi moved to Vermont to ski on the NCAA circuit for St. Michael’s College, where she served as team captain and studied journalism. Before joining Ski Racing, she worked as a broadcast TV producer and social media manager in higher education. She can be reached via email at gabbi@skiracing.com