Injured teen medal hope Tabanelli risks missing home Winter Olympics

Teenage freestyle skier Flora Tabanelli, one of Italy’s medal hopes at the upcoming Winter Olympics, risks sitting out Milan-Cortina after tearing a knee ligament, the country’s winter sports federation (FISI) said Friday.

World champion in the big air discipline, 17-year-old Tabanelli tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee following a fall in training on Thursday.

“Flora will begin a month-long recovery programme at J/Medical (Italian football club Juventus’ medical centre) in Turin on Monday. This programme will be key to any subsequent decisions,” said FISI.

The FISI added that Tabanelli’s knee will then be assessed, with results informing whether she can then begin more targeted recovery work aimed at her participation at the Winter Olympics, or go under the knife and miss the Games.

Tabanelli won two goal medals at last year’s Youth Winter Olympics in South Korea and would have been a contender for one of the 19 medals Italy’s Olympic Committee (CONI) is aiming for over February 6-22.

CONI’s goal is one less than Italy’s record medal haul of 20 at a Winter Olympics, set in Lillehammer 1994 when the country claimed seven golds and finished fourth in the medals table.

The Italians are already without alpine skier Marta Bassino, a two-time world champion, who broke her left leg in training last month.

Federica Brignone, the reigning giant slalom world champion and last season’s overall World Cup winner, told AFP before the start of the alpine skiing season that she is unlikely to return to competition before January due to a double left leg break suffered in April.

That would give 35-year-old Brignone just a few weeks to prepare for the Winter Olympics, during which the women’s alpine skiing events will be held at Cortina d’Ampezzo.