Alpine skiing-Austria's Liensberger to have knee surgery after training fall

Jan 2 : ‌Austria's 2022 Olympic slalom silver medallist Katharina Liensberger is set to miss the Milano Cortina Games after suffering a serious knee injury in a training crash.

The Austrian ski federation said Liensberger would have surgery later on Friday after medical examinations revealed a fracture ‌of the tibial plateau, a torn ‌meniscus and a medial collateral ligament injury in her right knee. 

Austrian media said the 28-year-old slalom specialist's season was over after the crash in St Michael, with the Olympics starting in Italy next month.

Liensberger won a team gold and ‍slalom silver in Beijing and was slalom world champion in 2021. She won a slalom bronze at last year's championships on home snow in Saalbach.

At Cortina she would have been up ​against American great Mikaela ‌Shiffrin, the most successful World Cup skier of all time who has won the last six World ​Cup slaloms and five this season.

The women are racing in Kranjska ⁠Gora, Slovenia, this weekend ‌with a giant slalom on Saturday and slalom on ​Sunday.

Liensberger adds to a list of top women's skiers to have suffered serious injuries in the run-up ‍to the Olympics.

Three Swiss Olympic champions - Michelle Gisin, Lara Gut-Behrami ⁠and Corinne Suter - have been sidelined in training incidents with the ​first two ruled ‌out of the Games.