Ski racer Thomas Dreßen is close to despair because of his ongoing physical problems. The most successful German downhill skier in World Cup history said he was “shitty” to “BR” after his last place in the classic in Wengen. The 30-year-old fought back tears.
“You really push yourself and I really try everything, but it’s bitter when your body just doesn’t play along anymore,” said Dreßen, breathing heavily. “It just hurts when you see the atmosphere and the route. I would love to drive there…”
Dreßen fought his way to the finish, but had actually given up the race at the Kernen-S. “If you go into a curve and you more or less don’t feel your haunches, then it just sucks,” he said. As soon as he jumped in the upper section, he “noticed that his knee was giving way again”. Later it was “as if I had just been riding on a hoe, I couldn’t feel my right foot.”
Dreßen did not spare his criticism of the world association FIS. “I think that in general you have to think about what is still useful when I think about how many races are planned,” he said about the strain on the athletes. Alexis Pinturault and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, two top stars, are out for a long time after serious crashes in Wengen.
He “doesn’t have the feeling that we don’t have enough races. The opposite is actually the case,” said Dreßen. If, like in Wengen and next week in Kitzbühel, canceled races elsewhere are added to the program, the classics would also be devalued.