The legend emerges from the silence: Marcel Hirscher: “It happened in such a stupid way”

Marcel Hirscher’s comeback season ended abruptly on Monday after a slip with serious consequences in training. The day after the bad news, the alpine skiing legend spoke from his hospital bed.

“Last race of the season. What remains is the love of skiing. Thank you all for your support,” Marcel Hirscher wrote on Tuesday in an Instagram message under a video posted showing the terrible incident that occurred during training on the Reiteralm.

During a right turn, Hirscher slipped, managed to avoid falling, but immediately grabbed his left knee. “A classic indoor ski,” described the athlete with 67 World Cup victories from his hospital bed in a video published by his sponsor Red Bull. “I got up relatively quickly. So far, it was cool turns that gave me a lot of fun. It was a really cool workout – until that corner where I skidded.”

“I understand now…”

A few hours later, the bitter diagnosis of a torn cruciate ligament was made, which quickly ended the season. “The cruciate ligament is still useless, but it happened in such a stupid way, where I didn’t even fall. I just slipped and got up,” Hirscher said angrily. “It’s a horrible feeling. To anyone who has ever had this, I now understand how unpleasant this feeling is. We immediately feel that something has happened. It’s very bitter at the moment.”

After just three races in Sölden, Levi and Gurgl, the comeback season is already over for the 35-year-old skier. “The reality now is hard to bear. I’m sorry for the team, because everyone gave everything and we don’t have the possibility to do the whole season,” said Hirscher, who will have surgery on Tuesday in Graz.

The thousandth fall

At the same time, the Austrian is aware that such serious knee injuries are part of skiing: “It’s a fate shared by many skiers. Unfortunately, this often happens to young athletes. I’ve been very lucky that nothing has ever happened to me in the millions of turns I’ve made in my life. Fortunately, this didn’t happen at 25, but now at 35.”

After all, he’s already fallen like this a thousand times, Hirscher said, before emphasizing: “Yesterday was just the thousand and first time. It seems like it was supposed to happen like this.”