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In a national TV interview, the Finnish giant tells how long back rehabilitation is going, goals for next season, and new motivation to achieve a major achievement in the 2018 Olympic Giant.
Tuesday 16 May 2017 10 minutes reading time
Although there is no room for further injury or falls in his clinical record, and although he is still in a rehabilitation period after the back surgery he suffered after the stage in Val d'Isere, Marcus Sandell did not It is still time to devote himself to a future entrepreneurial career as a result of his current academic studies at Haaga-Helia University in Helsinki.
And not only wants to be the protagonist of the 2018 Olympics, but aims to continue the activity in the White Circus until 2022.
In Marcus Sandell's sports career he has always been an alternation between short periods in which he has been able to show all his pure gigantic talent but was partially broken by the constant physical clutter that often prevented him from reaching the results Which deserved.
After his first years of apprenticeship in the European Cup and FIS races, his World Cup debut in Levi in ​​2006, and got the first points of the Cup in the Hinterstoder giant, for the then twenty-year Sandell, still immune from Injuries, he comes to Flachau 's greatest career satisfaction with the silver achieved in junior worlds in February 2007.
In the next two seasons of the "Mare" Cup, which has been called as a kid, he succeeds in staying steadily between the seventh and the 15th position in his favorite giant's specialty.
His first traumatic injury occurred during a summer training session on the Austrian Pitztal glacier in September 2009. On that occasion, Sandell was closer to the end of his life than to the agonistic activity alone.
The consequences of his ruinous fall were: loss of a kidney, spleen-splashed, broken hand, nose, spine, and numerous abrasions in other parts of his body. Carried urgently to the nearest hospital in Innsbruck, it has to be salvaged at the speed of the rescuers. Found with 3 liters of blood in his abdomen, at the end of the positive emergency operation, he was told that it was all a matter of minutes that he was now again competing with the skis at his feet and could still be thrown out of the Departure.
In the long rehab phase, Sandell lost 10kg of muscle mass, but this did not stop his will to represent Finland at the next Vancouver Olympics.
In the following season, Marcus struggled to take on the real rhythm of the competition and the right feeling with wide doors, but in February 2011 he came to Hinterstoder a fantastic 7th place in what he described as one of his best moments But above all, he remembers the Austrian resort, "from where I began to believe in myself again."
In fact, the years 2012 and 2013 were its best ever with a stable range between 5th and 10th and the podium for a few cents in the giant of Garmisch in 2013.
But after the Olympic disappointment in Sochi, "Mare" was continually struggling with a back-ball protuberance that influenced her workout performance but did not prevent him from competing in good levels at the World Cup.
Agreements with doctors decide to postpone complicated surgery, but when after the 26th place last December in Val d'Isere, the constant back pain also prevents him from running at least enough work loads imposed by the Giant, comes the decision to stop and work back and forth.
Do you think you've lost three years and have not done it before? "That's what I've been thinking a lot, but at this point it's useless to get back on. During my workouts I was almost always doing everything I used to do as a kid even though I sometimes lived with pain, and in the race my results were discrete at that time. Maybe if my results were negative it would have been a lot easier to operate right away. But now it's useless to slam your head against the wall; And it was a common decision. "
Now Sandell has come to the 5th complete rehabilitation month and his body is getting closer to the best shape and coming close to putting the loved skiing on his feet on the summer glaciers "During all the exercises I'm doing it's great to see that I finally can Do everything at your best and without any pain. Compared to only two months ago I must admit that I feel really good now. "
And it does not hide the fact of being in the upcoming season in a major event in his "main event" of the Olympic giant slalom in Korea, knowing that the first races will be complicated also because of the penalizing number of pettorals he will have in dowries as the cause of the long Seasonal stop: "My first goal is to get a lower possible number of pectoras, especially before the Olympics. So I can start at the same point as the strongest gigants. It will be my challenge for next season. If I'm in the 15th race of the first race, that would be great for me, then I know I could get into the 10th to the second. If so then I would be in top 5. I have been close to the medals already in the past but now I want to achieve more. I did this risky operation not with the intention of retirement but because I want to continue my career long and gain something important to me. "
On the re-found motivation, the Finnish giant continues: "At Pyeongchang I want to try first of all myself as far as I can still get. I finally want to reach and conquer my own important personal success. I'm not interested in personal World Cup winnings. If that had been, it would have been easy for me to leave the Alpine skiing before the operation and concentrate on something else. "
For the 29-year-old resident in Espoo, therefore, no early retirement goals but ambition to continue at great levels until the Olympics of 2022; And now that her clinical record is 'full' nothing is more precluded than before.
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