Beat Feuz: Ready when it counts

Timing, in sport, is everything. Just ask alpine skier Beat Feuz.

The 34-year-old Swiss’ career, to date, is renowned for the way it has pushed the boundaries of logic.

Dogged throughout his 15 years on the World Cup circuit by a persistent knee injury which, at its very worst, nearly required amputating, the way the skier has tamed his pain to transform himself to the master of downhill is to the marvel of nearly everyone that knows his story.

From season highs, to forcibly skipping the next, a chart of Feuz’s early years in his discipline resembles much more a mogul run than a traditional trajectory steadily trending upwards, but it is those rock-bottom moments the skier is often most thankful for.

Realising his knee could not match the demands of slalom turns the Swiss threw himself into the less technical events and that decision - to train smarter instead of harder - has paid dividends.

In 2017, after 11 years of wrestling with his injury, Feuz claimed world championship gold in the downhill. It was the start of something brilliant. Since that magic moment, the Emmentaler has become untouchable in the event winning the World Cup downhill title four years on the bounce, a feat last achieved by the great Franz Klammer (1975-1978).

Beat Feuz: an injury comeback like no other

2012 was the year the downhill skier’s life fundamentally changed.

What was meant to be an uncomplicated knee surgery unravelled into something far more serious. Feuz's body rejected the treatment leading to a serious knee infection; the Olympian was forced to go under general anaesthetic five times to have the injury flushed.

Ever since, the Swiss remains bothered by his injury. Skiing, training, everyday life – its impact has spared nothing.

Committed to turning things around, as he has done at other points in the first half of his career, Feuz learnt to adapt. A large chunk of the formula for his recent successes has been avoiding the technical races and focusing on the downhill.

It’s a strategy that has served the Swiss so well even he can’t fathom his achievements: “It surprises me myself,” Feuz told Neue Zurcher Zeitung.

“Up until the 2017 World Championship title, I said that with my broken knee I would never be able to do go through a whole season at a high level again. Four years later, I’m almost the most consistent downhill skier I’ve ever seen.

“I have surely found my way how I want to race. But that is not a guarantee either. It remains inexplicable to me.”

Given what Feuz must still physically negotiate every time he launches himself out of the starting gate, it’s a wonder how he is able to produce exactly what is required across each race, each year.

That ability to be ready when required is something, he admits, has always been one of his gifts:

“It is one of my strengths that I can be ready to the point.

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I take it easy in training, because I don’t have to set the best times and can take it easy. That’s why I can go a step further on race day, especially mentally.

“Sometimes at the start I still have the feeling that I am not ready. But when I push myself off, it’s like flicking a switch.”

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Beat Feuz: embracing the good with the bad

Though Feuz’s injury to this day still challenges him, and will do for the rest of his life, his body is not the only thing altered by what happened

Mentally, the four-time Crystal Globe winner is also a changed man.

In a short essay written by Feuz at the conclusion of the 2020 season the skier touches on handful of personal experiences that, to him, reveal a duality in sport.

Using the lens of a medal, of which the 51-time podium finisher certainly has a few, the skier explains how he finds the good and the bad in sport inextricably linked.

“When you practise sport at the highest level, you soon learn that staying on top depends on having the perfect mix of many different elements,” Feuz writes.

“Physical fitness, experience, knowing the slope, the snow, the equipment, all these contribute to determining the result. It’s a fine balance, that can be ruined at any moment, and if it weren’t so, anybody could be a World Champion. But they are not.

“When you start to know an environment at such a deep level, you accept the negative aspects too. They are often the hidden side of the medal.

“Skiing is a tough sport which gives with one hand and takes with other, but it makes you realise that in the end hard work and success are two sides of the same medal. One side glitters while the other does not, but they are made from the same material.

“The same is true for disappointment and for the desire for a come-back. For the beauty of travel and feeling homesick. For injuries and self-knowledge.”

The bittersweetness that underpins Feuz’s reflections go some way to explaining how he has been able to return time and time again from injury. Though 2012 may have been his darkest hour, it is a period of time he is deeply appreciative of because from it, he made a decision that would alter the course of his career for good.

Adjusting to his new physical restrictions, he decided to hone his craft on what had always been his favourite:

“I am also grateful for an injury that led me to dedicate myself to speed disciplines. A decision that has definitely paid off.”

The same outlook Feuz applies to 2020, a year in which the World Cup was severely disrupted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While he was not always able to compete, he did get to spend with his daughter, Clea and that for Feuz is his greatest takeaway. We can focus on what we have lost or we can work with what remains – ultimately, they are two sides of the same coin.

Beat Feuz: father first, Switzerland’s star alpine skier second

In July 2021, Feuz announced on his social media that he and his partner Katrin are expecting their second child.

Like the other major milestones in his sporting career, fatherhood has also required a bit of adjusting to, not least when it comes to navigating the obvious dangers that come with alpine skiing:

“I was aware of the danger beforehand. But what I’ve changed since I was a father: I drive very consciously and make sure that every trip somehow makes sense.

“I used to go training for a few days and think: ‘Let’s see what comes out.’ Time at home is important to me now.”

For the two-time Olympic medallist, however, there is one thing he loves in particular when it comes to his relationship with his three-year-old and skiing:

“When I walk in to the front door at home, my daughter doesn’t care at all how well I drove. She just wants to be with her dad.”

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