Broken leg, broken ski heart

She has already been through so much in her career, but now a Swiss skier has suffered another blow.

29 December 2024

From: det

She wanted to show everyone one more time at Semmering, the last World Cup stage of the year. But instead of racing for important points on the Magic Mountain, everything turned out differently for Andrea Ellenberger. The Swiss giant slalom skier ended up in hospital after a training fall - with a lower leg fracture, a sprained knee and several severe bruises.

This means that 31 is coming to a brutal end for the 2024-year-old. It was a year that was not off to a good start for the 53-time World Cup starter in any case. In the spring, she was kicked out of all Swiss squads after a disastrous season. The question was: stop or carry on? Ellenberger once again showed her fighting spirit and tried it on her own this year. But now the serious injury that seals the end of her season.

Andrea Ellenberger, skier from Switzerland. © AFP / JONATHAN NACKSTRAND

Ellenberger posted a photo on Instagram showing her on her hospital bed. "Speechless," the Swiss athlete wrote, adding: "It just wasn't meant to be." The emoji of a broken heart shows how deep the giant slalom specialist's wounds are.

Numerous setbacks in his career

Ellenberger, who has reached the podium several times with the Swiss team in her career, has had to deal with many setbacks over the years. She tore her cruciate ligament three times, was sometimes unable to climb stairs due to back problems, had a disc removed, was dropped from the squad and also had to cope with a stroke of fate with the death of her father.