Michelle Gisin suffered a serious injury last December. © ANSA / JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT

Gisin leaves his future open after his horrific fall: "Unimaginable at the moment"

In a detailed interview, Michelle Gisin looked back on her nasty fall last December and left her future in the Ski World Cup open.

March 28, 2026

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These were images that would stay with you. On December 11th, Michelle Gisin crashed into the safety netting at nearly 110 km/h during downhill training at the World Cup in St. Moritz. After the serious fall, the combined specialist had to be airlifted by helicopter, and the devastating diagnosis followed: injuries to her cervical spine and right hand, with torn cruciate and medial collateral ligaments.

"It was eerie when I saw the X-ray," Gisin said in an interview with Swiss Radio and Television (SRF). "For me, it's still difficult to understand how I could have injured myself so badly."

"The doctors explained to me that it was incredibly close. I could have been paralyzed from the waist down." Michelle Gisin

As the diagnosis revealed, the 32-year-old had apparently narrowly escaped an absolute tragedy. "The doctors explained to me that it was incredibly close. I could have been paralyzed from the waist down. I really struggled with that idea," Gisin revealed.

Gisin is leaving her future in the World Cup open.

Just two days after her horrendous fall, the tearful interview of her fiancé Luca De Aliprandini for a great deal of sympathy. As the Nonsberg native emphasized at the time, his voice breaking, it had been her wish that he compete in the giant slalom in Val d'Isère – a piece of "advice" that Gisin now regrets. "It broke my heart," she said. "My mind was somewhere around the Mercury. I was so heavily medicated that I didn't grasp the seriousness of the situation."

After such a fall and such serious injuries, the question of the future naturally arises: Will the two-time Olympic combined champion ever return to the World Cup? "I'll find out," she replied when asked if there would be another season for her. "I at least want to ski a giant slalom again on easy terrain; that would already be a tremendous achievement. Only then will I know if I want to do it again."

But that's far from the end of it. "After that, the question will be whether I can still do it. Whether I want to race again, I want to be able to answer that on skis, not on the physiotherapist's table. So, no decision has been made yet," Gisin noted. "Two days after the crash, I felt like I could go to Val d'Isère. But just as unrealistic as that was, racing again is unimaginable at the moment."