What can stop a WL Skier?

November 5, 2008

Certainly not broken bones! Here we will tell the story of Gilles Bertin (FRA) who fell 10 km before the finish of the last race of the 2007-2008 season, Birkebeinerrennet, broke the humerus of his right arm, but finished the race.
Gilles was born in 1954 and discovered XC skiing at the age of 14 through the TV coverage of the Grenoble Olympic Games; he decided that one day he would practice that sport. A book on the WL races revealed to him this series of races. Having finished his studies Gilles began XC skiing in 1978 and participated first in several races in France in the early eighties, before the big challenge Transjurassienne in 1984; he repeated the feat several times in the eighties.  Engadin followed in 1992.
Gilles lives in a small village near Salon de Provence in southern France. He trains on snow in the Vercors mountains near Grenoble (2.5 hours of driving). In summer he runs in the hills of Provence and practices roller-skiing. Now that Gilles’ children (he has two daughters aged 26 and 22) are grown- ups, he regularly participates in 2 or 3 WL races every year. He was going to obtain his first WL Master in the 2007 Birkebeinerrennet, but that race was interrupted because of a hurricanbviously, Gilles’s goal in this year’s Birkebeinerrennet was to at last finish his first Master that he itchingly missed the previous year. In one of the terrible descents after Sjusjoen Gilles fell violently, heard a “crac” and felt immediately a sharp pain in his shoulder. He stood up, tried to continue pushing with both arms but the suffering was too hard. Then he bent his right arm against his body, squeezed the pole under it and pushed with the left arm. The fall happened about 10 km from the finish; it was unthinkable to abandon! At the finish Gilles was transported to the hospital where he got a splint around his arm and shoulder. His wife Marie-Françoise (also a XC skier with several WL Silver races on her merit list) helped with carrying skis and bags during the travel back home.  Gilles got the lacking stamp and is now a member of the club of skiers who have accomplished the prestigious WL Master.
Gilles is kinesitherapeutist. We wondered to which extent the injury hindered his work. “I stopped working for only two days, for the operation that occurred one week later. Two screws were inserted in the shoulder at the end of the humerus. I massage backs with one hand. For re-education the patients have to work mainly themselves”.
 WL races are obviously a stimulus. In other articles about assiduous WL skiers we mention some accidents that did not prevent them from performing a full season. We have even seen our President Hannes ski rather slowly in this year’s Transjurassienne and asked him what had happened. “On Friday I fell on my back on an icy sidewalk and broke a rib. In the Saturday CT race I didn't feel it much but the following morning I had difficulties to get up from the bed. I travelled however by bus to the start of the Sunday FT race and began the race slowly, although a little grimacingly. After a few km of warm-up the poling became easier. I thought at my idol Pauli Siitonen who once broke three ribs but made a WL race at full speed the same week. Broken ribs take some weeks to heal; even if you stay at home you feel the pain, so skiing a race makes you forget the whole blasted thing for a while”.

This page was last revised on February 20, 2009