The tragic story of downhill hero Thomas Dreßen

“A year ago,” Dreßen said in an interview with the after his sensational victory on Saturday FAZ In his blunt way, to the point, “I was hanging in the net and hurting like hell. I was screwed.” The ski ace from Mittenwald (Garmisch-Partenkirchen district) fell in Beaver Creek and tore the cruciate ligament in his knee. “Yes, my, that’s an occupational risk,” he later said. Nevertheless, it was a setback for an athlete who had celebrated the greatest success of his career just a few months earlier by winning the Kitzbühel downhill.

Dreßen was seriously injured in Beaver Creek in 2018. © APA/getty / TOM PENNINGTON

But the German now knows how to deal with setbacks. Dreßen has often gone through sad times in his life. In 2005, when the ski ace was 11 years old, father Dirk tragically lost his life in the cable car accident in Sölden. At that time, a 750 kilo concrete bucket that had come loose from a helicopter hit the gondola, which fell to the ground and killed all 9 occupants. Since then, Dreßen has worn the number 44 on his helmet: the numbers each stand for the fourth letter of the alphabet, namely “D” – his father’s initials. Dreßen jumped away from death A year after the fatal accident, the next stroke of fate for Dreßen: the young boy collided with another skier on a slope, suffered a fracture to the base of his skull and serious injuries to his cheekbone and upper jaw. “That was it,” he explained Basler newspaper.

“If cerebral fluid had leaked out, I don’t know whether I would still be here today, and if so, in what condition,” said Dreßen. His happiness: the breaks. This allowed the pressure to escape. Nevertheless, he suffered from the consequences of the crash for a long time and found it difficult to concentrate at school, for example. Even today, the left side of his face is slightly numb.

But it was immediately clear to Dreßen that he wanted to return to the slopes. And so he quietly rose to the world elite of speed aces, where he finally arrived after his victory in Kitzbühel in 2018. His triumph in Lake Louise - exactly one year after his fateful fall in Beaver Creek, which resulted in a torn cruciate ligament - shows that he can continue to compete on an equal footing with the Dominik Paris and Vincent Kriechmayrs of the ski world in the future. Even if the path becomes rocky again.

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The tragic story of downhill hero Thomas Dreßen

The German Thomas Dreßen surprised everyone with his victory in the Lake Louise downhill race - especially because this race was his first after recovering from a cruciate ligament injury. If you take a look at the 26-year-old's life, it becomes clear: the boy so much deserves the victory.

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