Hosp hopes to compete in 2011 championships
TweetNicole Hosp now has her sights on shining at the 2011 World Ski Championships at Garmisch-Partenkirchen near her hometown next season.
The Austrian star who won the overall World Cup title in 2007 suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee when she crashed during the 2010 Alpine World Cup opening GS race in Soelden on Oct. 24.
After being airlifted off the course, Hosp underwent surgery immediately and her recovery time was expected to be six months, putting her out of contention for the Winter Olympics in February. According to her Website, however, Hosp, who turns 26 on Nov. 6, has a new plan. She was released from the hospital this week and is now back home in Bichlbach, Austria. The Site states that she “has accepted the injury” and has set a goal of competing in Garmisch, which is just 30 kilometers away from her hometown and which she considers her home hill.
Hosp’s career has been riddled by injury over the last year. She missed a large part of last season following a training crash in Zagreb in January, in which she injured her left knee. Before that setback, she had podiumed in Aspen, La Molina and St. Moritz.
She attempted to get back in the game at the 2009 World Championships a month after the crash, finishing 23rd in the giant slalom but clearly not 100 percent. She did however, work her way back onto the podium in the Ofterschwang slalom last March and was poised to be back to speed this season.
Instead she will spend the next few months rehabilitating. Hosp crashed in the first run of last weekend’s GS in Soelden. She came around a gate a bit too much in the back seat, spun around and fell, sliding on her side for several meters.
According to her Site, Hosp is now working with her physiotherapist and her knee will “be brought up to scratch again soon.”
Photo: (GEPA) Nicole Hosp makes her way to a press conference with her father, Hans Hosp, earlier this week following ACL surgery on her right knee.
