Just under a year ago, bobsleigh pusher Sandro Michel had a serious accident. In St. Moritz, he now talks about his recovery progress and his hopes of returning to racing.
The terrace in front of the Gunter Sachs Lodge is a hive of activity. Right in front of it, the women are getting ready for the second round of their World Cup race in the monobob. Right in the middle of it all: Sandro Michel. And that alone is a success.
350 days ago, his future was hanging by a thread. During a training crash of the four-man bobsleigh piloted by Michael Vogt in Altenberg, Michel lay unconscious on the track and was run over by the 500 kilogram sled as it slid backwards. It was only thanks to the swift intervention of medical helpers and several emergency operations at Dresden University Hospital that his life and then his leg could be saved.
Very well, given the circumstances
Now Sandro Michel is sitting at a table in the team clothing of the Vogt bobsleigh team. He had previously trained in a fitness center in St. Moritz. Everything looks good again, and Michel has climbed the stairs to the terrace without any apparent discomfort. "I'm actually doing very well," he assures us in a calm voice. "Given the circumstances, I certainly can't complain."
The project engineer no longer has many restrictions in his everyday life. A few weeks ago, he was able to put his walking stick away, and he is currently still on 30% disability, which means he is back to working around 50% of his 70% workload. He can also train as a sports soldier and count the time he spends in St. Moritz as training days. He also attends rehabilitation in Bellikon twice a week and does a lot of training. "The biggest restriction is still tying my shoes," says Michel with a slightly pained smile. "That's a bit tedious."
"I can do easy, relaxed runs," says the 28-year-old from Aargau. "The problem is simply that my hip joint is still quite stiff. I can't really get my leg up yet." But: "It's starting to feel like real training again." Michel still hopes to be able to return to active bobsleigh racing one day. But he also knows that this will be a difficult path. "It was extremely difficult to assess how things were progressing and what was possible," says the best pusher in Switzerland by far before his accident. "I really hope that I can still make progress in terms of mobility. But I really have to be satisfied with how things are going at the moment." Setting a time horizon is "very, very difficult".
Important contact with the team
In any case, contact with his sport and his team is important to Michel. In St. Moritz, he is a bit of a "man for everything". "I help out wherever I can," he explains. "Whether it's sharpening runners or adjusting certain things on the sled. When they have a race or in training, I help them pull the sled around, clean shoes, collect clothes and everything that goes with it." Michel believes that it is good for him to be with the team, but it is also important for the others to see how he is doing.
He has followed every race on TV so far and is of course particularly interested in the safety precautions that have been taken. He doesn't blame his pilot ("Crashes are part of our sport"), but the consequences could have been avoided, especially as the danger of the bobsleighs sliding backwards was well known in Altenberg. "It was one hundred percent human error on the part of the track operators," Michel insists, even with a little distance. After some time, they also wrote him a letter, to which the man from Aargau did not respond. It was not an apology. Apart from that, he doesn't want to go into the matter too much further.
Hoping for Cortina
However, he is following the efforts to improve safety with great interest. This season there were many more helpers on the track in Altenberg, so the accident would not have happened again. Of course, it's a shame that something bad had to happen first.
Sandro Michel is also "very, very excited" about the progress of next year's Olympic track in Cortina d'Ampezzo. "The place has a great bobsleigh tradition," he emphasizes. "I'm sure the older people still remember it." Of course, he hopes that he won't just be there to watch, but to take part himself. "But that's still written in the stars."
SDA
