Seth Wescott wants everyone to know he’s doing all right.

Not just physically but mentally. And that’s just as important to him as he recovers from surgery that re-attached his pectoral muscle to his right humerus.

“It’s all good,” said Wescott Wednesday in a phone interview from Colorado. “If you want to see what happened, I actually posted it on my Facebook page.”

What happened was that last Thursday, Wescott — the 35-year-old two-time Olympic snowboardcross gold medal winner from Carrabassett Valley — was involved in a collision with an Austria competitor in a snowboardcross World Cup event in Switzerland. The Austrian took a spill in front of Wescott, who braced himself for a crash.

“I was just trying to protect myself and not get totally messed up,” he said.

Instead, as he plowed into the pile, Wescott felt his right arm pop. “If you watch it in slow motion,” he said of the video, “you can actually see where the tear happens. The arm just kind of stops.”

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Originally, Wescott hoped it was just a pull. But an MRI showed the extent of the injury and he had surgery Monday in Vail, Colo., to reattach the muscle to the humerus.

“Now it’s just a waiting game until physical therapy,” said Wescott, who will keep the arm in a sling for a month while the attachment point heals.

While the injury ends Wescott’s World Cup season and his bid to earn a gold medal in the X Games, which begin this week, he said the timing could not have been better for his career.

“If you look at the timeline of things, it’s not a world championships year, it’s not an Olympics year,” he said. “I’m missing the X Games. That’s all right. I’ve got time to get myself ready to go next year.

“It’s all the time in the world until the next Olympics.”

That would be in Sochi, Russia, in 2014. Wescott, who won gold in 2006 (Turin, Italy) and 2010 (Vancouver), expects to be fully ready for another gold medal defense.

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“Sometimes injuries can be good in a way,” he said. “It allows you to refocus and reset those goals to what you really want to do.”

Wescott hopes to be able to at least get on his board for his March 10 race at Sugarloaf. He expects to be competing regularly by April 1.

This is Wescott’s third major injury. He had knee reconstruction in 2001 following an ACL tear. And he had 13 screws and a metal plate placed in his left arm in 2007.

“This one is relatively minor,” he said. “Compared to the knee, this is nothing. I still feel healthy. I’m still walking.”

Wescott has been asked to join ESPN’s broadcast of the snowboardcross from the X games this week as an analyst. Then he’ll return home, where he will begin extensive physical therapy. He recently signed a deal with L.L. Bean to test and design outerwear products.

“It’s actually kind of exciting to be home in midwinter,” said Wescott. “I’ll be able to work with the designers before returning to snow for April.”

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Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at:

mlowe@pressherald.com

Twitter: MikeLowePPH

 


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