ST. MICHAEL, Austria — Olympic slalom silver medalist Katharina Liensberger of Austria sustained serious knee injuries in a crash in training that effectively ends her season, skiing’s governing body said Friday.
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) said the 28-year-old slalom specialist sustained a fracture of the tibial plateau — where the shin bone meets the knee — along with a meniscus tear and a medial collateral ligament injury in her right knee.
Katharina Liensberger, an Austrian silver medalist in slalom and rival of Mikaela Shiffrin, will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury sustained in training. Frank Heinen/VOIGT/GettyImages
It said the fall occurred during a giant slalom training in St. Michael, Austria ahead of the weekend’s World Cup races in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.
FIS said Liensberger was due to have surgery Friday and wished her a successful recovery from the injuries that rule her out of the Winter Olympics in Italy, where she won two world titles five years ago.
It leaves Mikaela Shiffrin without one of her main rivals in slalom at the Milan Cortina Winter Games, and is the latest training crash involving a top skier.
Editor’s Picks
1 Related
Three of Switzerland’s reigning Olympic champions have also been injured in training recently: Michelle Gisin, Lara Gut-Behrami and Corinne Suter.
Editor’s Picks
1 Related
At the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, Liensberger won gold in the team event for Austria and individual silver in the slalom. She became the world slalom and parallel event champion the previous year in Cortina D’Ampezzo.
She finished fourth in her last World Cup slalom in Semmering, Austria, on Sunday.