FILE PHOTO: Alpine Skiing - FIS Alpine Ski World Cup - Men's Downhill - Wengen, Switzerland - January 13, 2024 Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde crashes during his run REUTERS/Claudia Greco/File Photo
(Reuters) - Norwegian skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde said on Thursday that he was unsure if he would ever return to his competitive best after his horror crash during a World Cup downhill race on the Lauberhorn course in Wengen last month.
Kilde, the longtime partner of U.S. skier Mikaela Shiffrin, has since undergone two surgeries, the first to repair a bad cut and nerve damage to his right calf and the second to fix two torn ligaments in his dislocated right shoulder.
The 31-year-old speed specialist was airlifted off the course and taken to a hospital in Bern after crashing into the safety net at full speed just before the end of his run in the Swiss Alps.
"It's a situation that's really unclear still with my injury," Kilde told a news conference.
"Right now it's too early for me to say whether I'll be able to ski the way I want to, to be able to win races again."
"Of course I want to come back to what I love and hopefully be able to be competitive again. But right now it's focused on getting back on my feet and work on walking to begin with, and take day by day."
Kilde, who won the overall World Cup title in 2020, is one of three elite skiers to have suffered bad crashes last month.
France's Alexis Pinturault also crashed on the Lauberhorn course during the Super-G, ending his season, while Slovakia's Petra Vlhova, the 2022 Olympic slalom gold medallist, suffered a season-ending knee injury on Jan. 20 in a giant slalom in Jasna.
Kilde said a packed calendar and extended daily programmes were contributing to an unsafe environment for athletes.
"I've been pretty open about the calendar and the schedule to begin with. I think we need to look into it, and I think we as athletes need to speak up," he added. "I don't think it's sustainable.
"Wherever you go there's a night programme, and with a night programme... you have a prize-giving ceremony and it's usually pretty late ... (It's) really kind of stressful for all the athletes.
"It's super important that we look at something that's more sustainable. This year, I think we've seen that there's been a lot of injuries, and that is not the case we want to have. We don't have any room to lose anybody."
(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)
