"That's fine then!" That's how Thomas Dreßen concludes his prognosis for the World Cup downhill this Friday (8:30 p.m.) in Lake Louise.

Bavarian-pithy, as you think you know him, the Dreßen-Tom from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the sensational Kitzbühel winner of yore.

"That'll be fine then" sounds at first like the mantra of the eternally optimistic, who has by no means lost confidence in himself and the world of skiing, come what may.

But with “that’ll be fine then”, the anxious hope of the battered person that things will finally turn out well for him resonates.

Achim Dreis

sports editor.

  • Follow I follow

It's been almost a thousand days since Dreßen contested his last World Cup downhill run: On March 7, 2020 he finished eighth in Kvitfjell, Norway, defending his second place in the World Cup - ahead of men like Matthias Mayer, who has now made it three times Olympic champion from Austria, and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, the then overall World Cup winner from Norway.

Thomas Dreßen was back in the middle of the world elite after having missed a season due to a cruciate ligament rupture.

Dreßen "fell into a hole"

But then part two of his personal, this time particularly long period of suffering began.

Exactly two years ago, in November 2020, he had to drop out of Copper Mountain training camp early because hip problems affected him so much that he could no longer walk without pain, let alone ski at high speed.

Two free joint bodies were wandering around in his hips and caused irritation.

"I was hoping that an operation could be avoided," he said at the time about the "stupid situation".

He couldn't.

In the entire following season he only competed in one race, the World Cup downhill in February 2021, 18th place.

A winter later, in November 2021, another bulletin hit him like a club.

His damaged right knee caused such severe problems that he had to be operated on again and had to write off another season.

When Dreßen then sat at home while his colleagues traveled to the training camp, he was overcome by a mood that he later identified as a depressive episode.

He then "fell into a hole," he admits.

Nothing was more fun for him, his wife was worried because he was so unusually quiet.

He was worried about whether he would ever be able to ski again.

Although a mental weakness was "uncharted territory" for him, Dreßen actively tackled the "problem" - like another form of training.

In doing so, he first had to realize "that it will get better if you work on it".

The support of friends and family, as well as talking to a mental coach, helped him out of the hole.

The connection with his former sponsor Red Bull, however, was dissolved.

They brought in too much unrest, Dreßen explained recently: "As you can see, I'm drinking water again."

Old news.

The most successful German downhill skier with five World Cup victories has made the connection again.

At the age of 29 now.

He is confident about his new start, even if he only finished 42nd in the first practice session on the World Cup track, even if he was trailing in the FIS races at Copper Mountain, even if the weather and snow conditions in the Rocky Mountains were not to his liking taste are.

Because in Lake Louise he had already managed a fantastic comeback.

It was November 30, 2019, a year to the day after he had a bad fall in Beaver Creek and torn his cruciate ligament.

Dresden won the race.

Then it fit!