Will Lara Gut-Behrami's career end with a serious injury? A fate that nobody deserves. Least of all our greatest ski star.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Lara Gut-Behrami has had a bad fall in training and may have seriously injured her knee.
- The 34-year-old Olympic champion and two-time overall World Cup winner may be about to retire from skiing for good.
- blue Sport reporter Sandro Zappella is hoping the ski gods will give her a dignified end to a unique career.
Lara Gut-Behrami had a serious fall during training in the USA yesterday. In addition to a concussion, there are fears of a possible cruciate ligament rupture and meniscus damage. If this is confirmed, it would probably mean the end of the Ticino native's career.
It would be an undignified and, above all, undeserved end to the most successful Swiss skier in history. Olympic victory, double World Championship gold, two overall World Cup victories and 48 victories in the World Cup - the 34-year-old has won everything there is to win.
There should have been one last big hurrah at the Olympic Games. In Italy, where she has lived for years, she would have loved to show the skiing world her skills one last time.
Happy Gut-Behrami before the last dance
When I meet Lara Gut-Behrami for an interview in the summer, she seems deeply relaxed, content and happy. She puts less pressure on herself than in previous years. Perhaps because she has firmly planned the end of her career for after Milan/Cortina. As an investor, Gut-Behrami is already planning for her post-career, but still repeatedly emphasizes that she wants to focus fully on her final season. Gut-Behrami also speaks more openly than ever before about her family, husband Valon Behrami and her desire to have children of her own one day.
That wasn't always the case. Lara Gut-Behrami has been in the spotlight since the age of 16, when she skied to a sensational second place in St. Moritz. She learned early on to build a protective wall around herself. At a time when Swiss-Ski was no longer used to winning, she had to go straight from being a skiing hopeful to a guarantee of success. She did everything she could to achieve this, even making unpopular decisions. Time and again, she had to meet the highest standards. Most of the time she had to prove it not only to herself, but to the whole of skiing Switzerland.
She did this with flying colors, always delivered and withstood the immense pressure. And yet she was often seen as moody and was sometimes misunderstood by fans and the media. Because she simply did what she felt she needed to do to meet the highest demands - from inside and outside.
Does the Sölden podium remain a small consolation?
Accordingly, she showed little understanding towards young athletes in a FIS talk at the start of the season in Sölden, who in her opinion would settle too quickly. For Gut-Behrami, there was only ever one goal: to be the best, not the most popular.
She would have deserved to be the best again at the Olympics in her adopted home of Italy. But now she is threatened with a premature retirement due to injury. This would have made the season opener in Sölden the last race of her successful career. She finished on the podium, as befits her status. It would be little consolation.
The hope remains that the ski gods will show mercy and that her injury will not turn out to be so serious. Because Gut-Behrami only deserves one thing: a great end to a unique career. Preferably with more Olympic medals.
