Injured Street May Head Home Today

Picabo Street, her future as a world-class skier in doubt because of a badly broken left leg, has been told she can return to Colorado from Switzerland today.

A day after a 3-hour operation in which a metal plate was attached to a fragmented bone in the leg, America’s best downhill skier was given permission by doctors Saturday to return to the United States.

“We are trying to make the special arrangements needed to get her out of (here), but it’s not easy,” Nadia Guerriero, a member of Street’s management team said.

Street broke her left femur in a spill in the closing downhill of the season at the World Cup finals.

Orthopedic surgeons called the operation a “success” and estimate recovery should take about six months. But that does not necessarily mean a return to skiing.

“We’ll know in a few months,” said Patrick Ravussin, chief anesthesiologist at the Hospital de Champsec in Sion. “A multiple fracture is hard to put back together. Her bone was fragmented in several places.”

“She’s actually doing very fine,” Herwig Demschar, coach of the U.S. women’s ski team, said. “She’s doing better than I expected. She thinks she made a mistake. She was trying to recover and it didn’t work out. It happens in downhill. It’s not a safe sport, everybody knows this.”

Hermann Maier, in his first full season on the World Cup circuit, left the final giant slalom race in Switzerland with a third crystal globe in his collection, assuring Austria’s claim to all five men’s Alpine titles.

Sweden’s Ylva Nowen, 28, won the women’s World Cup slalom title.

In Bozeman, Mont., Line Selnes of Colorado won her second gold medal of the NCAA Skiing Championships to lead her team to the national title over Utah.

Selnes won the 15-kilometer freestyle event in 41 minutes, 19.4 seconds. Irene Eder of Denver finished second in 43:37.6 and Selnes’ teammate, Unni Odegard, was third.