A harmless-looking fall in Chile
Maja Waroschitz's 2026/27 season is over before it has even begun. The 20-year-old from Tyrol suffered another serious injury to her left knee during giant slalom training in El Colorado, Chile. The diagnosis: a torn anterior cruciate ligament and damage to the medial meniscus, the Austrian Ski Federation (ÖSV) announced on Wednesday.
According to Swiss outlet Blick, the injury came from what looked like an unremarkable fall. Waroschitz has already undergone surgery at the Hochrum clinic near Innsbruck. She will miss the entire upcoming World Cup season and faces months of rehabilitation.
Same knee, less than ten months later
The timing makes the blow especially harsh. Only last December, Waroschitz badly injured the same knee in a Europa Cup giant slalom in Zinal, Switzerland, tearing her ACL, medial collateral ligament and lateral meniscus. After a long rebuild she was back on snow and preparing for the new season with the Austrian team in South America — now the road back starts all over again.
The Tiroler Tageszeitung called it a shock just before the start of the season. The knee had seemingly held up after the first injury: Waroschitz was back doing intensive giant slalom sessions, standard autumn work for any World Cup squad. That the next rupture came precisely in the phase when her body was meant to handle full training loads again makes it all the more painful.
Two ACL tears in under ten months is a major setback for any athlete, let alone one at the very start of her senior career. Realistically, she will not be thinking about racing again until the 2027/28 winter.
Triple Youth Olympic champion
Waroschitz has long been regarded as one of the brightest prospects in Austrian women's skiing. At the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, South Korea, she was the standout of the Austrian team, winning gold in slalom and combined, plus a third gold in the mixed team parallel alongside Florian Neumayer.
She made her World Cup debut as early as March 2024. Blick counts six starts at the top level since then — five slaloms and one giant slalom — though she has yet to score her first World Cup points. This winter was supposed to be the next step in her development.
Alpine Skiing'Calendar is full': Aicher, Weidle-Winkelmann reject annual WorldsThe jump from junior level to the World Cup is widely seen as the trickiest stage in an alpine career, and missing it can cost years. At 20, Waroschitz still has time on her side, but losing two winters in a row is a heavy price.
Another gap in Austria's technical squad
For the Austrian women, the loss is another blow during pre-season preparation. The ÖSV is looking for young skiers who can break into the world's elite in giant slalom and slalom over the coming years, and Waroschitz was one of the athletes expected to fill exactly that role.
The South American camps traditionally serve as the last big block on snow before the World Cup opener. That comes on 24 October with the women's giant slalom on the Rettenbach glacier in Sölden — without Maja Waroschitz, who will by then be deep into her second knee rehabilitation in the space of a year.
