Cyprien Sarrazin is on the mend after his serious crash in Bormio, but only very slowly. His comeback is questionable.
First of all, Sarrazin’s team doctor Stéphane Bulle announced the most important news: “He’s fine.” But immediately afterwards he added: “But he is still very tired and has difficulty communicating. He is relieved to be back in France and is fully aware of what has happened to him.”
Sarrazin with communication problems
The season, the French Ski Association declared, was over for Sarrazin. The 30-year-old had a serious fall during downhill training on the notorious Stelvio in Bormio on December 27th and sustained serious head injuries. He then underwent emergency surgery so that the blood could be drained from his head.
A week after the fall, Sarrazin continued to have difficulty communicating, suffered from double vision and his eye reflexes were impaired due to the excess pressure in his skull, Bulle said in a video conference: “All of this can be rehabilitated, as can the fact that you can carry out everyday gestures again, sitting down, standing, eating.”
Return open: “Absolutely no idea”
There is no thought of the speed specialist and Hahnenkamm winner returning any time soon. It would be a matter of “months and not weeks,” explained Bulle, without giving an exact time frame. Regarding the question of whether Sarrazin can continue his career, the doctor said: “I have absolutely no idea where this will lead. I can’t tell you. But it’s definitely our goal.” The highlight of the Alpine season is the World Ski Championships in Saalbach in February.
Spectators hold a banner saying “Forza Cyprien”
Sarrazin’s fall triggered Security debate out of
Sarrazin’s fall and further failures sparked a lot of criticism of the preparation of the slope. The Stelvio is considered one of the most difficult routes in the World Cup: There is a “fight for survival” there, said superstar Marco Odermatt from Switzerland. Sarrazin’s teammate Nils Allegre was particularly upset: “They don’t know how to prepare a track. They’ve been preparing tracks for 40 years, but they don’t know anything – except how to make them dangerous.”
Markus Waldner, race director of the FIS association, did not want to let the criticism stand like that: it was “not entirely justified”he said. He knows “no one who can prepare a 3.5 kilometer route evenly”. Especially since a lot of wind in the lower part of the Stelvio “dried out” the snow over Christmas. Because it was icy in the upper passages, this made it difficult to coordinate the material. “This is an outdoor sport, this is not a dream concert, even if it sounds harsh”said Waldner and complained that many teams behaved unreasonably. “There is no more room for maneuver. When you push yourself to the limit, things like what happened on Friday happen.”