Swiss ski great Lara Gut-Behrami retires after Olympic gold and world titles

Audio By Carbonatix

BERN, Switzerland (AP) — Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion Lara Gut-Behrami announced her retirement from Alpine skiing on Thursday.

The speed specialist from Switzerland won the Olympic super-G gold medal in the 2022 Beijing Games among three career Olympic medals, and the 2021 world titles in super-G and giant slalom.

Her 48 World Cup wins — 24 in super-G — are the fifth most all-time for women. She was the overall World Cup champion in 2016 and 2024.

“I have been fortunate and honored to enjoy such a long career, to express my dreams and ambitions through skiing, and to experience this journey alongside extraordinary people,” Gut-Behrami said in statement.

The 35-year-old was planning to retire at the end of last season in March but was not able to compete due to a severe knee injury from crashing in training at Copper Mountain, Colorado, in November. She ruptured ligaments in her left knee and damaged the meniscus.

The Milan Cortina Olympics was due to be her fourth Winter Games, with skiing on the Cortina d’Ampezzo course where she took the two world golds in 2021, along with a bronze in downhill.

“I consider that a knee injury, as complex as it is, cannot be considered a tragedy,” Gut-Behrami said then in a statement that noted recent deaths of young skiers who crashed in training.

“After almost 20 years in elite sport, and despite the crashes and injuries I have experienced, I am fortunate not to suffer from recurring pain — and I want to keep it that way,” she said about her retirement.

“This is another reason why I feel the right time has come: The moment when I no longer need to push myself to reach and exceed my limits at all costs.”

She also missed the 2010 Vancouver Olympics because of a serious hip injury and tore her left ACL at the 2017 worlds on Swiss snow in St. Moritz when she crashed in warmups for the slalom run in the combined event after placing third in the downhill that morning.

Since her 2008 opening season, Gut-Behrami reached 101 podiums in 395 World Cup races. Her 48 victories were second for a Swiss woman to Vreni Schneider, a slalom specialist in the 1980s-1990s

Gut-Behrami previously said she intended to move to England where her husband, former Switzerland midfielder Valon Behrami, works in the front office at second-tier club Watford.

___

AP Alpine skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing