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Aleksander Kilde at the ski race in Wengen (January 13th)

Photo: Alexis Boichard / Agence Zoom / Getty Images

Almost three weeks after his bad fall on the Lauberhorn descent in Wengen, the Norwegian ski star Aleksander Aamodt Kilde is yet to predict a comeback. The 31-year-old said at a press conference that he doesn't know whether he will ever be able to reach his top level again. “It’s too early to say whether I’ll be able to get back on skis like before and win races again,” continued Kilde.

»The situation surrounding my injury is unclear. I'm confident that things will be fine again, but the question is how long that will take," said the top downhill skier of recent years and overall World Cup winner in 2020. "But of course I would like to get back to what I was I love."

He is now focusing on “getting back on his feet and walking properly. After that, I take it day by day,” Kilde explained. It is uncertain whether the affected nerves need six months, a whole year or possibly even two.

Kilde fell during the race in Switzerland in mid-January and crashed into the safety fence at high speed. He had seriously injured his shoulder and lower leg. A nerve was also injured, which resulted in paralysis of the muscles used to raise the toes. The doctors assume that Kilde will recover as no important nerves in his lower leg were severed.

Kilde kept fainting

The Norwegian recently published drastic pictures of his calf injury on social media and described details of the rehab he is completing in Innsbruck. He said he fainted once in the first week when he went to the toilet and suffered a panic attack because of the heavy painkillers following a complex shoulder operation.

After his transfer from Bern to Innsbruck, he managed to sit upright for more than ten minutes for the first time in the second week without fainting. He will have to sit in a wheelchair for seven weeks, Kilde said last week. He has now been able to move from the clinic to his apartment in Innsbruck.

"This is a very difficult situation for me, to put it mildly," wrote Mikaela Shiffrin's partner. The American is also currently out injured.

ast/dpa/sid