Another serious injury occurred to one of alpine skiing’s biggest stars. Lara Gut-Behrami was the victim of a fall during super-G training at Copper Mountain (Colorado). The 34-year-old Swiss champion suffered an “injury to his left knee”, Swiss Ski announced in a statement. According to what Blick, a Swiss newspaper, wrote, Lara Gut’s hand hit the door and ended up spinning, a dynamic similar to the one that caused Federica Brignone to fall in the Assoluti giant slalom in April. For Lara, there was a fear of concussion and cruciate rupture. The accident that occurred yesterday could have ended the career of the Swiss champion, who has announced that he wants to end his career at the end of this season. Lara is at the US resort that will host four World Cup races next week. As reported by his country’s federation, he has returned to Switzerland for further examination.
PRECEDENT
This is not the first time Lara Gut-Behrami has had to deal with injury.
The first serious injury, to the hip, occurred in the 2009-2010 Olympic season which forced him to miss it completely: he had to say goodbye to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Then, at the 2017 World Championships in St. Moritz, the first cruciate (also left knee) to be blown. It’s been a difficult few months for Lara. In Are 2019 she is a ghost of herself, but on the plane back she utters the line “you don’t know who Lara Gut is”. In February 2020, a definite rebirth, just before Covid-19, with two downhill wins at Crans Montana, in front of a home crowd. A year later, in Cortina which would host the Olympics in a few months, he finally managed to get rid of the world championship taboo: in one edition he won not one but two world gold medals (in super-G and giant slalom). In February 2022 at Beijing 2022 he won his first Olympic title in super-G. In 2024 she won her second World Cup overall, repeating the cup she won in 2016. Last season she won the supergiant cup for the sixth time (a new record for her specialty) with a 35-point lead over Federica Brignone, who won the overall just ahead of Lara.
WHO IS LARA GUT-BEHRAMI
Lara Gut-Behrami, born Gut, is a leading skier on her country’s national team. Married since 2018 to former Lazio and Swiss national footballer Valon Behrami, she added her husband’s surname to hers. He recently told how meeting the former footballer changed his life. «It allows me to grow as a person before becoming an athlete». Lara started winning at the start of White Circus, where she debuted on the same day as Federica Brignone, 12/28/2007, in the Lienz giant slalom won by Denise Karbon. His first win came in December 2008, when at the age of 17 years and 8 months he became the youngest athlete to win in super-G. On that occasion she finished ahead of compatriots Fabienne Suter and Nadia Fanchini. He still has the biggest gap in any year in major circuit history between his first and last overall win (March 2024). Last October 25, in the inaugural giant slalom in Sölden, he finished third, achieving the 101st podium of his career and equaling the Swiss record set by Vreni Schneider in the 1990s.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
