Chemmy Alcott’s collapsed lung has ended the Ski Sunday host’s family holiday in hospital, after a mistimed front flip from a five-metre platform into Lake Annecy in the French Alps, as she revealed on Thursday, 13 August 2026.
The four-time Winter Olympian, 44, was holidaying with her family when the jump went wrong, as reported by the BBC. She landed badly, was rushed to hospital and needed a chest drain, turning the closing days of an alpine break into a ward stay.
Now for the part that will make every sensible adult wince. Rather than heading straight for help, Alcott went back to jump again, driven by what she called “embarrassment” after a landing that clearly had not gone to plan.
Her body then made the call for her.
What caused the Chemmy Alcott collapsed lung scare
The adrenaline did not last long. Alcott has since explained what stopped her from launching herself off that platform a second time, and it was not good sense so much as her lungs raising a formal complaint.
She realised she “couldn’t breathe properly and should probably go and get it checked out”.
That instinct turned out to be the right one. Alcott was taken to hospital, where doctors confirmed a collapsed lung and fitted a chest drain, a tube inserted between the ribs to release trapped air and let the lung re-inflate properly.
Lake Annecy sits in the Haute-Savoie region and is a magnet for summer visitors, with jumping platforms and pontoons a standard part of the appeal. A five-metre drop leaves very little time to correct a rotation once the body is already committed to the air.
Chemmy Alcott on her collapsed lung and the recovery
Alcott, who competed at four Winter Olympics and has spent years talking viewers through other athletes’ descents, has taken the whole episode on the chin. She summed up the cost of a badly judged rotation in one dry line, calling it “a very expensive lesson in rotation”.
She was equally deadpan about how the trip actually ended, swapping alpine sunsets for hospital corridors and a chest drain. Alcott made it clear that she came home from the Alps with rather more on the schedule than she and her family had packed for, describing “a few more hospital overnights than were on the holiday itinerary”.
Where the Chemmy Alcott collapsed lung leaves her now
Recovery from a collapsed lung generally means rest, monitoring and a firm ban on anything strenuous until the lung has fully re-inflated, so Alcott’s next few weeks will be considerably quieter than her holiday was.
Her return to the slopes will follow medical clearance, not enthusiasm.
