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She comes last, loses more than six seconds in the descent, but is perhaps the biggest winner of St. Moritz: Alice Merrywheater (27, USA). “I’ve probably never been so scared during a race. It was so dark. But it does not matter. I’ve always dreamed of this day. It is like the beginning of a new life,” she tells Blick.
Your great feelings do not come by chance. The former world junior downhill champion has not competed in a race for almost four years. In fact, she went through hell. Why?
To understand this, you have to turn the wheel of time back to March 2020. The corona pandemic is sowing fear and bringing the world to a standstill in many places. Her daily life as an athlete is also affected.
No races, no training, no contact with teammates – Merryweather cannot cope with the lockdown. “Because I could hardly set goals in sports anymore, I said to myself: ‘I should really go on a diet. All the food in European hotels has made you fat, you don’t look like an athlete anymore.”
Don’t eat anything? A sign of strength
At the start, the 1.72 m tall athlete weighs 68 kilos. Your goal: lose five kilos. She can do that quickly.
“If I’m hungry, that’s a good sign,” she tells herself. She overcomes the feeling of hunger and eats nothing or only a little – in her eyes at the time, this was proof of her strength. “I didn’t realize I had a problem for a long time.”
When Merryweather went skiing again in the fall, the scale read only 57 kilos. The trainers respond immediately and send her to the doctor. The diagnosis was quickly made: she suffers from an eating disorder.
A fall destroys her left leg
Merryweather makes her fate public to remove taboos from the subject. She is gone all winter, sometimes in the hospital, eventually recovers and goes skiing again.
In September 2021, disaster struck again: she fell during a downhill training in Saas-Fee at 125 km/h and suffered total damage to her left leg. Break the tibia and fibula, tear the cruciate and medial ligaments in the knee. The meniscus is also gone and her face is disfigured from all the abrasions.
“Love has returned”
Several operations and years pass. Merryweather is no longer racing – until Saturday in St. Moritz. 1379 days after her last race, she is back in the finish area of a World Cup race and has tears in her eyes.
“It’s as if I’ve been asleep for almost four years and now I’m waking up again. I have now lost my love for skiing, I admit that. But she has returned. Now I’m just proud of myself.”
Source : Blick
I’m Emma Jack, a news website author at 24 News Reporters. I have been in the industry for over five years and it has been an incredible journey so far. I specialize in sports reporting and am highly knowledgeable about the latest trends and developments in this field.
