Olympic ski champion Michelle Gisin airlifted after downhill crash in latest setback for Swiss team

ST. MORITZ, Switzerland (AP) — Two-time Olympic champion Michelle Gisin was undergoing surgery on her back Thursday having been airlifted from the course by helicopter after crashing hard in a practice run for a World Cup downhill.

Gisin is the third current Olympic champion in the Switzerland women’s Alpine ski team to be injured crashing in training in the last month, after Lara Gut-Behrami and Corinne Suter, just weeks before the Milan Cortina Winter Games.

The 32-year-old Swiss hit the safety fences racing at more than 110 kph (69 mph) on a cloudy morning at St. Moritz in practice for downhills scheduled Friday and Saturday, then a super-G Sunday.

Gisin “can move her arms and legs normally,” the Swiss ski team said in a statement, but also has injuries to her right wrist and left knee.

She is having surgery in Zurich, where she was taken by an air ambulance service, and is in a stable condition, her team said.

One of Gisin's skis seemed to catch an edge approaching a fast left-hand turn and she lost control going straight on, hitting through the first layer of safety nets until being stopped by the second.

Television pictures showed Gisin conscious lying by the course with scratches and cuts on her face as medics assessed her.

Gisin, who won gold in Alpine combined at the past two Winter Games, is currently the veteran leader of the Swiss women’s speed team because of injuries to her fellow 2022 Beijing Olympics champions.

Gut-Behrami’s Olympic season was ended tearing the ACL in her left knee while crashing in practice last month at Copper Mountain, Colorado.

Suter is off skis for about a month with calf, knee and foot injures from a crash while training at St. Moritz last month.

At the last Winter Games in China, Suter won the downhill, Gut-Behrami won super-G — where Gisin took bronze — and Gisin took the final title in individual combined. The Swiss skiers have seven career Olympic medals.

Gisin crashed Thursday when United States star Lindsey Vonn was already on the course having started her practice run. Vonn was stopped while Gisin got medical help and resumed her run later.

Vonn was fastest in the opening practice Wednesday.

The Milan Cortina Olympics open Feb. 6 with women's Alpine skiing race at the storied Cortina d'Ampezzo hill.

AP Winter Olympics at https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Michelle Gisin of Switzerland is being carried on a stretcher to a helicopter after a fall, during the women's Downhill training race at the Alpine Skiing FIS Ski World Cup, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

Switzerland's Michelle Gisin speeds down the course during an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill training, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti)

Michelle Gisin of Switzerland in action before a fall during the women's Downhill training race at the Alpine Skiing FIS Ski World Cup, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

Michelle Gisin of Switzerland is being carried on a stretcher after a fall during an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill training, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Keystone Via AP)

Michelle Gisin of Switzerland is being carried on a stretcher after a fall during an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill training, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Keystone Via AP)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee is preparing to execute Harold Wayne Nichols by lethal injection on Thursday for the 1988 rape and murder of Karen Pulley, a 20-year-old student at Chattanooga State University.

Nichols confessed to killing Pulley as well as raping several other women in the Chattanooga area. Although he expressed remorse at trial, he admitted that he would have continued his violent behavior had he not been arrested. He was sentenced to death in 1990.

In a recent interview, Pulley's sister, Lisette Monroe, said the wait for Nichols' execution has been “37 years of hell.” She described her sister as “gentle, sweet and innocent,” and said she hopes that after the execution she'll be able to focus on the happy memories of Pulley instead of her murder.

Nichols' attorneys unsuccessfully sought to have his sentence commuted to life in prison, citing the fact that he took responsibility for his crimes and pleaded guilty. His clemency petition stated “he would be the first person to be executed for a crime he pleaded guilty to since Tennessee re-enacted the death penalty in 1978.”

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay of the execution on Thursday.

Nichols, 64, has seen two previous execution dates come and go. The state earlier planned to execute him in August 2020, but Nichols was given a reprieve due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Nichols had selected to die in the electric chair — a choice allowed in Tennessee for inmates who were convicted of crimes before January 1999.

Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol in 2020 used three different drugs in series, a process that inmates’ attorneys claimed was riddled with problems. Their concerns were shown to have merit in 2022, when Gov. Bill Lee paused executions, including a second execution date for Nichols. An independent review of the state’s lethal injection process found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been properly tested.

The Tennessee Department of Correction issued a new execution protocol in last December that utilizes the single drug pentobarbital. Attorneys for several death row inmates have sued over the new rules, but a trial in that case is not scheduled until April. Nichols declined to chose an execution method this time, so his execution will be by lethal injection by default.

His attorney Stephen Ferrell explained in an email that “the Tennessee Department of Correction has not provided enough information about Tennessee’s lethal execution protocol for our client to make an informed decision about how the state will end his life.”

Nichols' attorneys on Monday won a court ruling granting access to records from two earlier executions using the new method, but the state has not yet released the records and says it will appeal. During Tennessee’s last execution in August, Byron Black said he was “hurting so bad” in his final moments. The state has offered no explanation for what might have caused the pain.

Many states have had difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs as anti-death penalty activists have put pressure on drug companies and other suppliers. Between the shortages and legal challenges over botched executions, some states have moved to alternative methods of execution including a firing squad in South Carolina and nitrogen gas in Alabama.

FILE - This undated photo released by the Tennessee Department of Corrections shows Harold Wayne Nichols in Tennessee. (Tennessee Department of Corrections via the Chattanooga Free Press via AP, File)