COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colorado — His time and where he finished were irrelevant. For the first time since a horrific crash almost two years ago, and the surgeries, setbacks and fears that followed, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde was racing.
With fiancée Mikaela Shiffrin watching anxiously in the finish area, the Norwegian made a triumphant return Thursday to the sport he once dominated. When he crossed the finish line, Kilde and Shiffrin both broke into wide smiles.
“They were very overwhelming,” Kilde said of his emotions. “They were — the last, I don't know how many months, but there's been a lot of thinking, different scenarios in my head. How is it going to be to be back? Am I going to handle it?
“And honestly, the feeling that I had when I was skiing was just, it was amazing,” Kilde said, smiling and making a chef’s kiss gesture. “I had the best time I've had in so, so long.”
Kilde, the 2020 overall champion and two-time medalist at the Beijing Olympics, was going about 90 mph when he crashed within sight of the finish line at a World Cup in Wengen, Switzerland in January 2024. He suffered a deep gash and nerve damage in his calf, and also dislocated his shoulder, tearing multiple ligaments and causing nerve damage.
