U.S. moguls skier Heidi Kloser’s first Olympics came to a disastrous end Friday.
Kloser, 21, was warming up for her qualifying run at the moguls course outside of Sochi when she crashed, severely injuring her right knee. She was carried down the hill on a stretcher and taken to a local hospital, where U.S. team doctors discovered she had completely torn her ACL, partially torn her MCL, bruised her tibial plateau and fractured her femur.
As they rode in the ambulance, Kloser’s father, Mike, said his daughter asked him, “Am I still an Olympian?”
“We said, ‘Of course you are,'” he said.
The crash occurred just minutes before Kloser, a Vail, Colo., native, was scheduled to begin her first run. She has been ruled out for the remainder of the games.
“She’s completely bummed, as we are,” Mike Kloser told The Denver Post. “She was really hoping, all things considered, to at least be able to start in Saturday’s final qualifier.
“Regardless, she plans to walk in the opening ceremonies.”
Kloser informed fans of his daughter’s condition in a touching Facebook post shortly after receiving the diagnosis.
Kloser was the second-ranked U.S. skier in the competition behind defending Olympic gold medalist Hannah Kearney. Kloser is now out of contention, but she revealed in a tweet that she will indeed walk with her fellow U.S. Olympians in the opening ceremony Friday night.
Check it out below.
[tweet https://twitter.com/HeidiKloser/status/431796310728278016 align=’center’]
The ceremony is set to begin at 11 a.m. ET.
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@william_pitts
