Ski star after horror fall
“The hole was the size of three credit cards”
October 20, 2025 – 10:00 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
At the end of last year, Cyprien Sarrazin was in a coma. Now the ski star talks about his injuries in detail.
French ski star Cyprien Sarrazin had a serious fall during training on the famous Stelvio slope in Bormio, Italy, last December and suffered several injuries. The 31-year-old had to have head surgery and was put into a coma. Sarrazin is now feeling better again.
In an interview with “Welt” he explained: “I’m here. I’m making progress.” He’s still bothered by knee pain, “which drives me crazy. But that’s nothing compared to what happened to me nine months ago.” At that time, Sarrazin feared for his life. His helmet exploded during the fall and his airbag “burst into a thousand pieces,” he recalled. He subsequently had problems speaking and seeing – for several reasons.
The Frenchman had a subdural hematoma after the fall, “because the brain was bleeding,” he explained. “To eliminate the bleeding in the brain, the doctors cut open my skull with a laser.” Sarrazin made a comparison: “The hole was the size of three credit cards.” The operation lasted six hours, then everything was sewn back up.
Today, there is hardly anything left of his “Viking” scar, as he described the cut from his forehead to his ear. However: “I still have a small calcified hematoma on my back because I lost two or three liters of blood due to the impact of my fall,” continued Sarrazin. He also had a small hole in his skull that was closed with a metal star.
Sarazzin also suffered from diplopia, “that is, I saw double. After three months everything was back to normal, although I was told that it could stay that way for the rest of my life.” However, he has lost feeling in his left nostril.
Although Sarrazin is feeling better again, he is not expected to take part in the 2026 Winter Olympics. And not with a return to the World Cup before the 2026/27 season. The ski racer wants to be able to “get back on the skis under good conditions, make turns and have fun.” At the moment he “doesn’t feel like getting up at 4 a.m. to go skiing on a glacier.”