A crash. Both lower legs broken. A severed nerve. “You’ll never be able to ski again—walking without pain would already be a success,” doctors told Max Franz more than three years ago, as he sat in a wheelchair with both legs in casts. That was the initial moment of a comeback few believed in for a long time—except for him. “I wanted to show what the human body is capable of, and what becomes possible when you believe in yourself,” he says on the day before his World Cup comeback race.

Race courses are archaic memory storage devices. At ski venues, lived emotions – both positive and painful - are involuntarily recalled by athletes as memories. In these moments, victory and defeat lie very close together. Few know this feeling as well as Max Franz. Since his life-altering training crash, he has overcome barrier after barrier. Most recently, the most challenging one of all: the crash site itself in Copper Mountain. He failed on his first attempt at the internal qualification of the Austrian Ski Federation for the speed season opener in Beaver Creek, but he conquered the mountain and the course. Another small yet significant success along this seemingly endless journey of recovery.

Giving up? “It was often an option,” Max Franz admits. Just a few days ago again, during the first inspection of the Saslong:

"I’ve overcome so many of these inner hurdles: Getting out of the wheelchair, learning to walk, the first time on skis, the first jump. Standing on normal stair steps felt like staring down a 20-meter abyss. And every single time, I pushed myself through it.”

Most recently, he served as a forerunner for the first downhill in Val Gardena. “Mentally, already a thrill. But the system knows when it counts.” The reward for that self-overcoming: a respectable run, an impressive time – and “a grin from ear to ear already at the finish,” says Max Franz. Finally, his first World Cup start again. “I’ve worked toward this goal for three years. It’s been achieved. Now the new goal is to ski a good race. I’ve come back to stay!”

After missing the qualification opportunity in the U.S., he flew home and trained – most recently even giant slalom together with Marcel Hirscher. The buddies from their youth share a long history. Right now, they are connected not only by their mission with VAN DEER–Red Bull Sports, but also by the fact that, at 36 years of age, they form a two-man fight club on the road back to the Ski World Cup.

For Max Franz, that moment has now arrived. Unlike Copper Mountain, he is not returning to a place of misfortune, but to a place of strength: “Val Gardena – this is where I achieved my first top-five result. The peak from 2016 to 2018, with one victory and two second places, is still stored inside me. At the same time, it feels as if I’m here for the first time – a good feeling,” says Max Franz on the day before his World Cup comeback.

It is the return of a quiet hero – one that truly deserves admiration.