A week after his violent fall in Bormio (Italy) which seriously injured his head, Cyprien Sarrazin was repatriated on Friday to France, to Lyon, where the descender will begin a long convalescence, with no guarantee yet that he will be able to resume his career.
It's no surprise to anyone, but the French Ski Federation (FFS) confirmed it on Saturday during a press briefing, Sarrazin's 2024-25 season is over.
The Haut-Alpin, world No.2 in downhill last winter during which he won in Bormio and twice in Kitzbühel (Austria), will start another race in Lyon, one to regain all his faculties.
“We are talking in months, we are not at all talking about recovery in weeks,” warned Stéphane Bulle, the doctor of the French alpine ski team, during this video conference.
“He is doing well, but is still very tired and has difficulty communicating. He is relieved to be back in France and he is fully aware of what happened to him,” detailed the doctor.
On December 27, during the second official training before the downhill and super of Bormio, counting for the World Cup, Sarrazin lost control of his skis on one of the last difficulties of the Stelvio, one of the most feared on the circuit where the men's alpine skiing events of the 2026 Olympics will take place.
Helicoptered to Sondalo hospital, not far from Bormio, where he received “very good quality care”, insisted Doctor Bulle, Sarrazin, 30, suffered on his arrival from an “acute intracranial hematoma”.
– “Drill hole” –
“The hematoma quickly worsened and led to what is called compression,” the doctor revealed. “We have, in agreement with the neurosurgeons, made a burr hole. That is to say, we make a suction in the skull to empty the blood inside the hematoma.”
Transferred Friday to the Médipole in Lyon, Sarrazin will then continue his convalescence at the Henry-Gabrielle center, still in Lyon, “which really has a specificity in neurological rehabilitation for people who have had car accidents, people who have had enormous trauma “, said the doctor.
His rehabilitation began with simple actions.
“We're going to start allowing him to do things that everyone does, namely sit, eat, stand up. Today, he still has a little trouble opening his eyes, because he suffers from diplopia, that is to say that the reflexes which coordinate your two eyes are a little disturbed following the hyperpressure in the skull”, detailed Doctor Bulle.
If he said he was “relatively calm” before the final assessment of potential injuries which will be carried out in the days to come, the French team doctor does not yet have an answer to the question of whether the leader leader of French downhillers will be able to resume his career at the high level.
“I have absolutely no idea where this is going to take us. I can't tell you. But anyway, that's our goal,” he admitted.
It also remains to be seen whether Sarrazin, already the victim of heavy falls in the past, including serious head trauma in 2018, will still want to hurtle down icy slopes at more than 100 km/h.
The Swiss Mauro Caviezel, victim of a comparable fall in 2021, resumed his career after a year of absence before hanging up his skis for good after another fall in the race.
jr/smr
