According to the Norwegian association, the 31-year-old suffered a deep cut on his lower leg and also suffered a shoulder dislocation. However, he did not suffer any fractures and was in good hands at the Bern hospital, as team doctor Marc Jacob Strauss said on Sunday.
Kilde thanked him on social media “for all the words of love and support,” he wrote. “This sport can be brutal, but I still love it,” he noted alongside photos of him in his hospital bed. His girlfriend Mikaela Shiffrin can always be seen at his side. The American traveled to Bern on Saturday afternoon.
Details about the injuries will only be released later, it said. It was reported from Kilde’s environment that he would probably not be used again this season.
Kilde fell in the finish curve of the Lauberhorn descent and crashed into the safety net from an acute angle with full force. After a long period of initial treatment of the heavily bleeding wound on site, he was flown to Bern by rescue helicopter.
For FIS race director Markus Waldner, the increase in falls can also be attributed to the busy schedule. That’s why he doesn’t want to reschedule canceled speed races at another location in the future. “In the future you should absolutely avoid doing three speed events, or not do any more, because it is really too heavy for a large part of the starting field,” he said in the ORF interview on Saturday evening. It is not good to “squeeze something in by force” into an already overloaded calendar.
Two speed events in the same category at one location, such as those scheduled this year – without postponements – in Kitzbühel, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Chamonix, also need to be carefully discussed. “That’s not good,” emphasized Waldner. However, he also pointed out that he no longer designs the calendar alone. “You have to ask other gentlemen. On the upper floor,” noted Waldner.
It is an open secret that the Alpine World Cup calendar is decisively shaped by the highest levels of the FIS world association, namely President Johan Eliasch. It is said behind closed doors that the second trip to the USA in February/March and the Matterhorn Speed Opening were organized at his behest.
