Since the day last December when he suffered serious head injuries in a skiing accident, the slightest mention of Michael Schumacher has attracted worldwide attention.
The former Formula 1 star, the most successful racing driver in the world, has been in hospital ever since his crash into rocks just off the marked ski slopes, but information about his actual condition has been sparse.
When news of his accident first emerged, hundreds of journalists and television crews from all over the world set up outside the hospital in Grenoble, crowding his family as they tried to visit him.
Some members of the media managed to get rooms in the same hotel as the Schumacher family; one tabloid journalist even disguised himself as a priest in an attempt to gain access to the ward in which Michael Schumacher was being treated.
Throughout, the family has pleaded for respect and privacy, while from time to time offering small nuggets of information.
At the beginning, the medical team in Grenoble gave terse press conferences, announcing that Michael’s condition was life threatening, then that it had stabilised.
He was in an induced coma, and would, it was explained, gradually be woken from it at some point.
Never, though, did his doctors offer a prognosis of what kind of recovery Michael Schumacher was likely to make, neither did his family comment.
For his millions of fans around the world, the lack of information has been disappointing. They all hope that such a vigorous and relatively young man will recover, but they would also like to know more about how he really is.
Journalists, of course, wish him well too, but they are also frustrated: every mention of Schumacher trends on Twitter, every paper with him on the front page will increase its circulation, every news website featuring anything at all about him can guarantee thousands of hits.
The pressure to find something to say about him is huge.
And then, although no one likes to talk about it, there are Michael Schumacher’s many sponsors, from Mercedes to mineral water, who simply do not know whether their star ambassador will ever be able to represent them again.
By Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Geneva
