Italy’s Federica Brignone told AFP on Saturday that she won’t return to alpine skiing competition before January, less than a month before the start of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
Brignone is in a race against time to be ready for the sprawling 2026 Games from February 6-22 after suffering a double left leg break in the Italian championships in April. That horror injury came a week after Brignone completed a career-defining season in which she won world championship gold in the giant slalom discipline and the overall World Cup title.
“I think it will be impossible for me to return to competition before January, or right before the Olympic Games,” Brignone told AFP at the sidelines of a media event organised by Italy’s winter sports federation near Milan. “I haven’t even put my skis on yet so it will be difficult to be back before January.”
Earlier the 35-year-old said she is unsure when she will be able to strap on her skis and begin training, ahead of the start of the new alpine skiing season which begins next weekend in Solden, Austria.
“I’m getting better week after week and I’m putting in a lot of work, and that is positive,” she said.
“From tomorrow I’ll be back at JMedical (medical centre of Italian football club Juventus in Turin), I’ll be back there to do physiotherapy until I’m ready to put my skis on. “It’s really hard… since April I’ve thought about everything else apart from skis, the boots and all the ski equipment; it’s not even really entered my head.”
Brignone, who also won both the downhill and giant slalom categories in last season’s World Cup, said that she is still in pain as she continues her rehabilitation after needing a second operation at the end of July.
“I’ll talk about it with the team managers because we’ve got a really strong team, the girls all give it a good go and if they deserve a spot (in the Olympic team) more than me, that’s all there is to it.
“I work between five to seven hours a day just to recover from the injury and that means I’m working really hard because otherwise I’d have one leg that’s a completely different shape to the other.
“I’m not doing any actual training, I’m still doing physical therapy and every day I feel pain.” The women’s alpine ski competition at the Winter Olympics will be held in Cortina d’Ampezzo from February 8-18.