Alpine skiing: Former racer Nicole Hosp injures her knee during a tracking shot in Jasna

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Nicole Hosp after her serious fall in Jasna

Photo: Harald Steiner / GEPA pictures / IMAGO

The women's World Cup giant slalom on Saturday in the Slovakian winter sports center Jasna is causing a lot of discussion.

On the extremely icy slope, numerous athletes slipped, lost absurdly large amounts of time or fell heavily, such as Olympic champion Petra Vlhova, whose season ended after tearing her cruciate ligament.

Nicole Hosp, who was supposed to cover the course with the camera as a TV expert for ORF, had it no less difficult.

The former world-class rider, who ended her career in 2015, fell badly and is said to have suffered a meniscus injury, as the "Tiroler Tageszeitung" reports.

Falls during tracking shots are rare because the runners are not running at competition pace.

Hosp herself spoke up in an Instagram story, showed her bandaged knee and wrote: “Unfortunately it's happening so quickly, but I'm on the road to recovery.

The meniscus has been repaired and the rest will become apparent.” The cruciate ligament could also be damaged, and further examinations are still pending.

Hosp tore her cruciate ligament in 2009 during her playing career.

Nevertheless, she won, among other things, twelve World Cup victories and three medals at the Olympic Games.

The race itself began with a delay on Saturday because a forerunner also crashed.

Afterwards, Olympic champion Sara Hector (Sweden) coped best with the icy course and won an impressive 1.52 seconds ahead of superstar Mikaela Shiffrin (USA).

Alice Robinson (New Zealand/+2.71) came third.

The German rider Lena Dürr scored World Cup points in 28th place, but was 8.77 seconds behind after two runs.

"It's brutal to drive, very, very slippery"

However, the race was overshadowed by the many falls (14 runners were eliminated) and, above all, by the end of the season for Vlhova, who can no longer compete as the next ski star.

Previously, the men were hit by, among others, the Austrian Marco Schwarz, the French world champion Alexis Pinturault and the Norwegian downhill expert Alexander Aamodt Kilde. 

"It's brutal to drive, very, very slippery," Austrian Franziska Gritsch told the "Standard" afterwards.

»I think you have to feel 100 percent safe with this unique surface.

If you don't feel that, you'll lose a lot of time," explained Shiffrin, who then won the slalom on Sunday.

kjo