Alexis Pinturault: “It’s not normal that accidents are more and more serious”

ThoseAlpine Skiing World Cup –

“It’s not normal that accidents are becoming more and more serious”

Alexis Pinturault was injured during the super-G in Wengen in 2024. He is alarmed by the tendency of his sport to send skiers to the brink.

BotTalk

• Alexis Pinturault took a long time to come back after his fall in Wengen in January 2024.
• The French champion explains the increase in the number of serious injuries in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
• Marco Odermatt’s former rival calls for real studies on the phenomenon.

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Alexis Pinturault, you skipped the speed events in Bormio and Wengen. Why return to Kitzbühel, on the descent reputed to be the most dangerous on the circuit?

I participated in the Beaver Creek events, which went very well. Then I did Val Gardena. The snow there was not too hard and my preparation, as well as the kilometers accumulated in super-G, meant that the race worked well. Then I arrived in Bormio. The conditions were really icy. It was a reality check and I clearly told myself that I wasn’t ready for this.

The track is difficult, but above all it was strongly criticized.

Above all, it was very poorly groomed, which made the track even more demanding. In addition, I fell ill and unfortunately there was Cyprien’s accident. All this formed a cocktail which meant that I did not have the green lights to start. Bormio is a place where you have to be 100% ready, like in Kitzbühel.

Debates around security have crystallized in recent years. How does it feel, when you are forced to take risks?

Risk has always existed in alpine skiing. Today, we talk about it more because the accidents are more and more serious. It’s a reality. When I arrived on the circuit, there were crashes by Daniel Albrecht and Marco Sullivan, but that was generally confined to the Kitzbühel finish line. For two or three years, we have seen that there are more and more accidents, and not only on the Streif. There are some in Bormio, in Wengen which almost never had any. This year too, there were quite a few injuries. I think it’s multifactorial.

What are these factors?

I think first of the calendar. He was very criticized last year, and Wengen was perhaps the worst example because the descent is not necessarily difficult in terms of demands. But it is in length. It really affects the body. When you spend three days in Wengen and you arrive at the third day, you’re done. If you also participate in the super-G, which still lasts more than a minute and a half, you are no longer cooked, but roasted. Fortunately, the International Federation has come back on the calendar, and I think it is better this year.

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Can it still be improved?

The FIS has decided to stop catching races, which is a real effort. But we must stop this sequence of Val Gardena and Alta Badia which imposes four races in four days. You also need to stop moving from right to left one after the other. We cause time differences, and that too is dangerous.

The dangerousness of the slopes has often been pointed out. How to mitigate risks?

The most dangerous cocktail has always been ground movement and speed. If the organizers do not master the last Kitzbühel bump, we arrive at 140 km/h and we take the risk of flying a little too high. This is where accidents happen and there was no shortage of them in Beaver Creek. I think I’ve done every downhill training there for ten years and I’ve never seen as much terrain movement as this year. Result? There are I don’t know how many injured, and we are talking about “real” injuries. Broken knees, broken bones and athletes having a sleepless season.

The FIS regularly cites the evolution of equipment as an aggravating factor. Do you share this opinion?

This is probably the last parameter which explains all these serious injuries. In any case, we try to be more and more efficient. If we want to win, we want to go faster. If we want to go faster, we look for solutions to achieve this. We must therefore find solutions to slow us down or to stop all these ground movements.

Yet, from talking to some athletes, many seem to accept the risk. And even rejoice in it.

Skiing will always be one of the riskiest sports. He always was. On the other hand, it is not normal for accidents to become more and more serious – or for serious accidents to become more widespread. At one point, only the cruciate ligaments were breaking. Gino Caviezel, he suffers from the meniscus, the posterior cruciate and I believe that there is even the cartilage which suffered.

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So it is the nature of the injuries that has changed?

We will always break an arm, a shoulder or we will always tear our crossbones. But we have to stop having more and more serious concussions. Mauro Caviezel, now Cyprien Sarrazin: each athlete who falls generally has a concussion and the protocol is not always put in place. With serious knee injuries, recovery times are much longer and risk sidelining us permanently. I would like to see the real studies of the International Federation, not the ones that fix them. I want the statistics of those who start in the World Cup. How many of the top 30 at the start of the season are still there at the end? And without subtracting them, because when we are injured, we are removed from the list.

Isn’t speed racing destined to keep risk in your sport?

We can take the example of Formula 1. At the time, accidents were much more serious than those in recent years. Sports can become less and less dangerous, not in terms of risks but in terms of accidents that have repercussions for the body. The trend should be moving in this direction, but cycling and skiing are moving in the opposite direction.