French skier Alphand flown to hospital after training crash / Photo: Fabrice COFFRINI - AFP
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French skier Alphand flown to hospital after training crash
French skier Nils Alphand was evacuated by helicopter after a heavy fall on Friday during a World Cup training run in Crans Montana, Switzerland.
After the 28-year-old fell about 50 seconds into his downhill run, emergency staff were seen putting Alphand in a neck brace.
The son of three-time downhill World Cup champion, Luc Alphand, Nils Alphand had been the best of the French team in the first training session at Crans Montana on Thursday, clocking 17th, in preparation for the downhill on Saturday and the super-G on Sunday
It marks the latest in a series of serious accidents on the World Cup circuit this year and the fourth to hit the French.
Their leading skier Cyprien Sarrazin suffered a serious head injury in December. That was followed by season-ending injuries to team-mates Blaise Giezendanner and Alexis Pinturault.
American Mikaela Shiffrin suffered a perforated pelvis, impaling herself as she crashed in a giant slalom in Vermont in November while Czech Tereza Nova was this week woken from the artificial coma she had been placed in after crashing in downhill training at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany in January.
J.Fletcher--NG
