Alpine crash was my destiny, says Beltrametti

NOTTWIL, JANUARY 7: Silvano Beltrametti could have been packing his bags soon on his way to the Winter Olympics and possible glory.

Instead, the 22-year-old Swiss will be getting used to a wheelchair after the horrific race accident which left him paralysed from the chest down.

But, despite confessing to a brief bout of depression immediately after the accident last month, Beltrametti refuses to be bitter about the sudden and violent end to his career as a ski racer. “Somebody up there has decided that this is my new destiny and I’ll follow my new path,” Beltrametti said. “It could have been much worse. “It was my destiny that this happened and I accept it.”

Ski racing, by definition a dangerous sport, has witnessed tragedy before. Only weeks before Beltrametti’s 120-kmph accident in Val D’Isere, French Super-G world champion Regine Cavagnoud died following a crash in training.

Beltrametti, giving a news conference last week at Switzerland’s leading clinic for paraplegics, relived his crash in the December 8 World Cup downhill when his skis sliced through the safety netting at the side of the icy OK piste.

“If I skied down this course 500 times, such a mistake would only happen once again,” he said. “I was slightly on the back of my skis and I lost control over my line,” said Beltrametti.

“I fought and tried to recover my balance, pushing on my right ski. Then my left ski cut an edge and it was over. I went into the nets. I lost track of what happened for a short period and then I was lying on my back and I felt right away that I was badly injured because I couldn’t feel my legs any more.”

Doctors told him he had broken his spine between the sixth and seventh vertebrae and would never walk again. Beltrametti found himself in good hands at the Nottwil clinic, where senior surgeon Guido Zaech had good experience of ski race accidents. (Reuters)