Alpine skier Kalle Palander faces his toughest ordeal yet

Persistent leg injury puts entire career on the line: “I am saddened beyond belief”

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Alpine skier Kalle Palander has customarily appeared in public as relaxed and good-humoured.
      On Wednesday, however, this was not the case. Palander said he was “saddened beyond belief”.
      The reason for this was not just the fact that Palander will have to skip next week's FIS World Cup event in Finland’s Levi, just like he did the season-opener in Sölden, Austria.
     
What pains the man is that his entire career is at stake.
      Palander told of his sentiments mixed with desperation and disappointment in a letter that he sent to the media on Wednesday afternoon.
      “As an athlete and a human being I am facing my toughest tribulation yet, as I am forced to announce that my career as an Alpine skier is facing a divide”, Palander started his letter.
     
Indirectly Palander admitted that for him the current season is already more or less over.
      The reason is the persistent stress fracture in his shin that has already required two operations but has still failed to heal properly.
      This also means that an Olympic medal, which Palander has announced as the main goal of his sporting career, will remain beyond his reach.
      Still, Palander refuses to give up just yet and abandon his career as an Alpine skier.
      While convalescing during the winter Palander will have time to think about his future.
      In his letter, the skier reckoned that perhaps sometime in the spring he can be more precise about his future plans.
      Palander also said that the decision to skip the Levi event was made out of necessity.
      “Unfortunately yesterday’s practice run at Levi proved that at this point I have no chances whatsoever to compete with this leg.”
     
Kalle Palander, now 32, burst onto the scene in 1999 when he came from nowhere to win the World Championship gold medal in the slalom in Vail.
      In a career that has already had more than its share of ups and downs before this latest injury, he has won 14 World Cup events (10 slalom and 4 giant slalom, most recently in December 2007), and was the FIS slalom World Cup overall winner in the 2002-2003 season.
      He was also runner-up in both the slalom and giant slalom World Cup in 2003/2004, and again placed second in the ranking in the slalom in 2005/2006.
      Palander has unfortunately not been able to reproduce the same form at the Olympics, and in three attempts - Nagano, Salt Lake City, and Torino - he has come no closer than 9th place.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kalle Palander records third World Cup giant slalom win at Alta Badia (17.12.2007)
  Alpine Skiing World Cup season-opener may move from Austria´s Sölden to Levi in Lapland (8.10.2009)
  Kalle Palander could miss World Cup season with recurrence of old injury (17.10.2008)
  Palander´s season over, as skier goes for leg operation (4.2.2008)

Links:
  Kalle Palander (Wikipedia)
  Official website - the X-ray images from the 4.11. blog entry tell their own story

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