After a heavy fall and an ankle injury, Clément Noël hopes to regain his full potential for the slalom of Madonna di Campiglio (Italy), this Wednesday January 8. After a good start to the season, the skier from Val d’Isère (Savoie) is in third place in the general classification for the specialty.
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Clément Noël spent the end-of-year holidays treating his right ankle, injured in mid-December, and did little skiing. But the 2022 Olympic slalom champion hopes to do better than limit the damage on Wednesday at Madonna di Campiglio (Italy), the first meeting of a busy month of January.
With five slaloms between now and the end of the month, out of a total of twelve this winter, the big names in the tight stakes will have little respite. In anticipation of this start of the year, which is always decisive for the award of the specialty globe, the skier from Val d’Isère took advantage of“a good time to rest for Christmas and the holidays”spent with family “calmly”he explained.
Noël, 27, didn’t really have a choice: he had to spare and treat his injured right ankle when he made a mistake during the giant of Val d’Isère in mid-December. “I didn’t ski, I didn’t do a lot of physical preparation, but I focused on getting back to my best level through ankle care”detailed the one who will start on Wednesday (5:45 p.m.) “with a well strapped ankle”.
“It’s certain that I won’t have a lot of training rounds in my legs, I won’t be in the best shape, but I think it can do it, I can manage the pain”he insisted.
While his season ideally started with two successes in the first two slaloms of the winter, in Levi (Finland) and Gurgl (Austria), it could have been completely derailed in mid-December. He had to give up on the Val d’Isère slalom, the day after his giant fall, then ended the year with a commendable 6th place in Alta Badia (Italy) while being far from being 100%.
He is still in the mix, in third place in the slalom World Cup rankings with 240 points, on the heels of Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen (270 pts) and Swiss Loïc Meillard (245 pts).
If he has never won yet on the Canalone Miramonti, Clément Noël (second at Madonna last winter and third in January 2020) “like it” the Dolomites trail. “It’s going to get better and better anyway.”estimated Noël who spent the first week of January training in Folgaria, not far from Madonna.
“It’s an injury that requires quite a long healing period, so obviously it’s not perfect in two weeks of rest, but I think that if I managed to run at Alta Badia at a suitable level, that’s when same good sign for the month of January”he concluded. And also for the objective of his season, the 2025 Worlds in Saalbach (Austria) whose men’s slalom is scheduled for February 16
