Two years ago, Marc Gisin had a serious crash in Val Gardena - now he has ended his career.
We spoke to the 32-year-old who was dead for a few minutes.
Munich - Two years ago, skier Marc Gisin (32) fell so badly on the downhill run in Val Gardena that he was dead for a few minutes.
Then the Swiss man was in an artificial coma for five days.
He survived despite fractures to his costal arch, a crushed lung, fractures to his hip and teeth, and a concussion, but his life started again from scratch.
Eating, drinking, using the toilet, breathing, walking, Gisin had to learn a lot from scratch.
He made it back on the skis, back on the slopes and back in the World Cup training sessions.
He never started again in a race, his 101st outing was his last.
He
ended
his
career
a few days ago
.
Gisin follows the races today and tomorrow in Val Gardena with sadness and relief.
Marc, was the decision announced or was it made spontaneously?
Gisin: I've had to deal with it for two years because my life could have come to an end in Val Gardena.
As an athlete, you don't think about options like this, but that was a story on a different scale.
Since last spring the odds have been 50 percent.
You know about comebacks. Your cruciate ligament tore in 2012 and in 2015 you suffered cerebral hemorrhage after a fall in Kitzbühel.
Gisin: A cruciate ligament is healthy again after six months, you know exactly what measures to take.
After the fall in Kitzbühel, I felt very good at first, too good.
A year later I was able to
Post-traumatic stress disorder not sleeping properly for six months.
Head injuries are always tedious and extremely difficult to assess, which is why I set myself a time limit until the start of the season.
+
Had a hard crash in Val Gardena: Marc Gisin from Switzerland.
Photo: Alessandro Trovati / AP
© Alessandro Trovati
Marc Gisin: "It doesn't feel like giving up"
Giving up is demonstrably not part of your character. Have you given up now?
Gisin: It doesn't feel like giving up to me.
I am not totally relieved or in a hole.
It's a rational, logical, and consistent step.
I'm okay with the decision.
Tell me about the last training session, you should have felt really good, right?
Gisin: There were some athletes behind me.
I don't want to go into too much detail, but I wasn't miles away.
However, my demands are higher.
I want to win a World Cup and be able to compete for podium places.
My biggest problem was proprioception, the perception of my own body in space.
Sometimes I no longer felt the skis and the strength.
The time achieved and my feeling did not match.
One last start today or tomorrow in Val Gardena, wouldn't that have come full circle? Was that never an issue?
Gisin: No, no.
There have been many frustrating moments since the fall two years ago.
The training sessions that I did in Lake Louise, Beaver Creek, Wengen and Val Gardena almost hurt my heart.
It wasn't like it used to be, driving a World Cup track like this wasn't fun.
Why did you try so long anyway?
What was it that fascinated you about skiing?
Gisin: If you shoot out of a curve at 120 km / h and notice how the ski is pulling, or if you risk a steep slope, that's something.
Overcoming these hurdles, that was a satisfying and nice feeling, certainly also with a certain addictive potential in connection with adrenaline.
Check out this post on Instagram
$ {caption}
$ {footer} $ {time}
Marc Gisin: "You have to be aware that there is a residual risk"
You were also incredibly fast in Val Gardena. Do you still have memories?
Gisin: A few fragments came back from the day before the race.
But I don't remember anything about race day and the five days after that.
Meanwhile, a lot is missing from the weeks after the intensive care unit.
The medication I was given was probably very strong.
On the day before the accident of all times, you published a column in the newspaper in which you wrote about falls. Fate? Or what was that?
Gisin: Good timing, right?
It was probably my good journalistic instinct.
The Swiss view then asked whether the column was to blame for the fall.
But there was no connection, I had written the text two weeks beforehand.
But as a downhill skier you inevitably think about falls at some point, right?
Gisin: You have to be aware that there is a residual risk if you fall more or less naked at 140 km / h, with 2.20 meters of wooden boards equipped with four knives, down a mountain.
That's why I never had any quarrel.
Falls are part of life, you learn from them.
If we had never fallen, we couldn't go today.
But of course, falls with a caliber like mine are very rare.
Especially in Val Gardena there was a lot of bad luck.
If I have the cutter ten or twenty meters ahead, I slip out and get annoyed with the time.
But I do not fly into the opposite wall at 120 km / h.
Marc Gisin: "It was very lucky because I survived it without long-term damage"
You speak of bad luck, but you could also have died.
Gisin: You have to see it from two sides.
It was very lucky because I
survived
it without
long-term
damage, but on the other hand, very bad luck.
This classification is relative.
Her sister Dominique said: "A woman would probably not have survived the fall."
Gisin: I don't know what to say about that.
Yes, it was very much at the limit.
At times I had no pulse and stopped breathing because my lungs were shattered, these are not the best vital signs.
The first paramedic that was with me started praying.
In rehab, you referred to the coma as a "power nap" and explained your weight loss by the fact that a cordon bleu does not fit through tubes. Interesting humor.
Marc Gisin: "A lot of people worried a lot, that was the worst for me"
Gisin: It was my way of showing people that I am still the same as I was and that I can crack slogans again.
A lot of people were very worried, that was the worst for me.
Above all your mother. She always followed your races on TV from a safe distance.
Gisin:
To see his son lying on the bar with a lot of tubes, that is certainly not a nice picture.
The fall was not a feast for the eyes either.
Their fear is normal; parents, especially mothers, are worried about all colleagues.
Dominique (35) and her younger sister Michelle (27) are Olympic champions. Are you annoyed that you lack great success?
Gisin: It would of course be better if I could look back on successes, because that was the goal.
The first two seasons up to the cruciate ligament rupture also looked good.
I was the youngest in the top 30 with Dominik Paris. But I don't feel like mourning here either.
The lid has been on since Val Gardena, I accept that.
Marc Gisin: "That after a career there has to be a lateral entry at some point ..."
Do you want to stay connected to skiing?
Gisin: At the moment I'm not involved anywhere and I have no intention of becoming a coach.
I am studying business psychology and can then imagine applying my experience from top-class sport to corporate health promotion.
It was clear that there would have to be a lateral entry at some point after the career, that's okay.
Because as a World Cup driver, unlike a professional footballer, you didn't get it right?
Gisin: That's right.
But even if I had millions in my account, I wouldn't be happy with just money either.
You have to do something.
What do you do on Saturday during the race?
Gisin: I will watch with sadness.
I'll miss the whole thing, that's how it should be.
- Interview: Mathias Müller
