Olympic ski champion Michelle Gisin airlifted after Swiss crash

Swiss suffer third crash in a month by an Olympic champion in training ahead of World Cup and 2026 Milan Cortina Games.

Two-time Olympic champion Michelle Gisin has been airlifted from the course after crashing hard in a practice run for a World Cup downhill.

The 32-year-old Swiss skier hit the safety fences racing at more than 110km/h (69mph) on a cloudy morning on Thursday at St Moritz in practice for the downhills scheduled for Friday and Saturday, followed by a super-G on Sunday.

One of Gisin’s skis seemed to catch an edge approaching a fast left-hand turn, and she lost control, going straight on and hitting through the first layer of safety nets until being stopped by the second.

There was no immediate report of any injury. Television pictures showed Gisin conscious, lying by the course with scratches and cuts on her face as medics assessed her.

Gisin is the third current Olympic champion in the Swiss women’s Alpine ski team to crash in training in the past month, after Lara Gut-Behrami and Corinne Suter.

Gisin, who won gold in Alpine combined at the past two Winter Games, is currently the veteran leader of the Swiss women’s speed team because of injuries to her fellow 2022 Beijing Olympic champions.

Gut-Behrami’s Olympic season was ended after she tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her left knee while crashing in practice last month at Copper Mountain, Colorado, in the United States.

Suter is off skis for about a month with calf, knee and foot injuries from a crash while training at St Moritz last month.

At the last Winter Games in China, Suter won the downhill, Gut-Behrami won the super-G — where Gisin took bronze — and Gisin took the final title in individual combined. The Swiss skiers have seven career Olympic medals.

Gisin crashed on Thursday when American star Lindsey Vonn was already on the course, having started her practice run. Vonn was stopped while Gisin received medical help and resumed her run later.

Vonn was fastest in the opening practice on Wednesday.

The Milan Cortina Olympics open on February 6 with a women’s Alpine skiing race at the storied Cortina d’Ampezzo hill.

Concerns had been raised in advance of the World Cup in Septemberprimarily about how to limit risks in the high-speed sport, following the death of Italian skier Matteo Franzoso in a training accident in Chile.

The debate continued into the start of the Olympic ski season a month later, with prominent American skier Mikaela Shiffrin stating: “We are often training in conditions where the variables are just too many to control, and you have to decide sometimes: is this unreasonably dangerous?”