AST Athlete Journal: Aidan Kometz
The ski season has officially begun! With the first World Cup in Solden and the local hills opening up it’s hard not to get excited. My name is Aidan Kometz and I am entering my second year with the Alberta Ski Team. Although we are just entering the race season, my season has had an unexpected turn. Like so many ski racers before me, I tore my ACL. To anyone not familiar it is a season ending injury due to its 9-12 month recovery period. So as possibly one of my only journal entries of this year, I thought I would share the story.
Our first pre-season camp in Saas-fee was going amazing. The weather and snow conditions were in our favour, we were getting significantly more days on snow compared to last year, and my skiing was progressing. It was a regular GS training day with “hero” snow and everything felt great. However, on my second run in the course I shifted my weight and leaned in on a right footed turn. This caused me to fall on my hip and start sliding (A “hip slide”) which isn’t an uncommon mistake for me. This was probably one of my most frequent errors in my previous seasons and was something I was working hard to fix. Like so many times before, I stood up from the slide but this time my edge got caught and bounced me up faster than normal. This resulted in me landing in a squat position with all my weight on my downhill knee, tearing my ACL. From my perspective it all happened so quickly. All I really remember was hearing and feeling a pop in my leg and then a ton of pain. I took a moment and skied to the bottom of the run and waited a couple runs to see if the pain went down. I even went for a freeski run but could tell it was unstable with pain from bearing weight. So I left the glacier to head back to the hotel.
I lost almost all mobility in my leg due to the swelling and was limping everywhere. I quickly saw a doctor, but to my surprise she said that I didn’t tear anything, that I was okay to return to snow when it felt better. While my knee still felt slightly unstable, all the effort I had made to bring down the swelling worked. I had almost full range of motion back. Now I am unsure if it was placebo from the doctor or my muscles were compensating, but I felt basically normal. 7 days after the injury I was running and playing soccer. My coach witnessed this and like any reasonable person he told me I should get back to skiing. So after 2 days of freeski exercises I returned to full course training. It obviously felt weird or “off” but I just ignored it and kept skiing. I had no pain. I trained for an additional 4 days in gates before our team packed up and headed home.
The change in direction my situation took when I got back was a lot worse than I expected. I saw a doctor in Calgary and he informed me I did actually tear my ACL but an MRI was needed to confirm. This was heart dropping to hear because I was so assured I was fine after the Swiss doctor and going back to skiing. I was looking forward to our upcoming Chile trip and the season ahead of me. I was stronger and more prepared than any time before. I was praying that the MRI would say I was okay. Sadly, this was not the case. The results showed me that I had a fully torn ACL and Lateral meniscus at the root, and sprain my MCL and another smaller ligament. This was a heartbreaking result, even worse than the just ACL because a torn meniscus causes a much harder recovery.
I now have a surgery date set for November 20th and have been building up my strength and endurance to prepare me for recovery. It will be a long 9 months (give or take) till I am fully healed. However, I believe there is always a silver lining. I can focus on getting much stronger and focus on lots of other aspects of my health. I am happy I can still cheer on my teammates and see their success. I hope to live this year through them in a way. There will be things that challenge me mentally and physically this year but I am ready to face the challenges head on and am excited to get back to skiing one day.
The team is feeling amazing too. Luc, our newest male athlete is fitting right in and it sucks I don’t get to ski with him this season after we grew up racing with each other. I look forward to seeing everyone succeed and I am grateful for everything this team has offered and taught me. I can not wait for when I can join them again on the slopes! This last year couldn’t have been possible without the support of the sponsors of our team GMC Dealers of Alberta, Karbon Sports, Genstar Canada, Mountain Fire Foods, and Gearup Mountain Sports.
