Injured for two years
Ski racer threatens to end his career at 25 years old
12/23/2024 – 6:48 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
Yannick Chabloz was considered a great talent at the beginning of his career. But a training fall gave his career a serious blow – the outcome is uncertain.
It was almost exactly two years ago that the Swiss Yannick Chabloz fell during training before the World Cup downhill in Bormio. The speed specialist lost control during a jump at the beginning of the route and hit his back on the slope. He suffered a fracture of the spinous process in the cervical spine and also fractures in the thoracic spine.
According to the Swiss newspaper “Blick”, a doctor recommended that he have two vertebrae stiffened in order to stabilize the spine. Chabloz refused. It cannot be said whether the procedure would actually have helped. But it didn’t work without it either. The now 25-year-old has not been able to take part in any races since the crash.
Downhill coach Vitus Lüond now told “Blick” “that we definitely won’t see him on any racing slopes this winter.” Chabloz also lost nine kilos of muscle mass. Lüond also ventured a bitter diagnosis: “I fear that we will never see Yannick at the start of a World Cup race again.”
It would be the bitter end to a career that started well. At the Winter Universiade, the World University Games, in Krasnoyarsk (Russia) five years ago, he won gold in the combination and bronze in the super-G. At the Junior World Championships in Narvik (Norway) a year later, Chabloz won bronze in the Super-G, missing silver by three hundredths of a second.
In December 2021 he celebrated 13th place at the World Cup downhill in Val Gardena. Chabloz competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, but fell badly in the combination and had to end the season early. But he fought back and started again in the World Cup before suffering the serious injury in December.