Manon Ouaiss during her race at the Beijing Winter Olympics in China in 2022. (Credit: Photo taken from Manon Ouaiss's Instagram account.)
"My heart is broken." With these words, skier Manon Ouaiss, 25, began her lengthy message announcing the bad news: she will not be participating in the Winter Olympic Games.
The skier suffered a serious fall Tuesday during a training race in Morzine (Haute-Savoie) and underwent surgery the next day in Thonon-les-Bains to treat multiple fractures to the tibia and fibula of her left leg.
The injury dashed her Olympic dreams just one month before her scheduled appearance on Feb. 15 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, in the Italian Dolomites.
Qualified for the giant slalom and slalom events, the young athlete was the first Lebanese woman to secure her ticket last April to the world’s premier winter sports event.
Lebanon will nonetheless have at least one other representative at these Olympics, which will open on Feb. 6 with the opening ceremony in Milan, northern Italy. This will be Samer Tawk, who has qualified in cross-country skiing.
Two other skiers, Andrea Hayek and Juan Hobeish, are still in contention to earn a spot for Lebanon in alpine skiing. Their points will be tallied at the conclusion of the qualification events, which will end this Sunday, Jan. 18.
'I will stop because of this injury'
While it is too soon to know the length of her recovery, Ouaiss already knows her future will no longer be on the slopes. "I was planning to stop skiing after these Games, as it is not compatible with a professional career. So I will have to end competition on this injury, unfortunately," she told L’Orient-Le Jour.
Asian champion in 2022 and five-time Lebanese alpine skiing champion, the young athlete’s career abruptly ended this week.
"This is the harsh reality of high-level sport: years of sacrifice, pushing limits, overcoming pain — all reduced to nothing in a fraction of a second," she said. She added: "But today, I can say with pride that throughout this journey, I do not regret a single second. I had the courage to relentlessly face challenges with unwavering determination. If I had to do it all again, I would do exactly the same thing."
After discovering skiing in the Lebanese mountains, Ouaiss moved to France at the age of 18, where she has trained since 2019 in Brides-les-Bains with the Orsatus club, a facility dedicated to athletes who cannot train in their home country.
Already an Olympian four years ago at the Beijing Games, she became the sixth Lebanese female skier to qualify for the Olympics, following in the footsteps of Farida Rahmeh (Innsbruck 1976, Lake Placid 1980), Alya Trad (Sarajevo, 1984), Chirine Njeim (Salt Lake City 2002, Turin 2006, Vancouver 2010), Jackie Chamoun (Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014), and Natacha Mohbat (Pyeongchang 2018).
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