Tina Weirather Announces Retirement
Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather has announced that she has hung up her ski boots at the age of 30.
Weirather said: "It's a big step for every athlete, to decide when the right time has come - for me it's now. "I've had an amazing career, even though it started pretty rough - when I was 21, I'd already had seven knee surgeries in the books."
"Everything has an end (except the sausage has two🌭😛). Yep, I’ve said it. As of today, I’m officially retired and a pensioner. It was a thrilling ride, an adventure of a lifetime. Everything I am today, I am because of skiing. 15 years after my first World Cup race, I can say with no regrets that I’ve given it my all. For what and who I’m beyond grateful, why I retire now and what I’ll do from here on out,
Weirather made her World Cup debut at age 16 in October 2005 and has nine victories and forty podiums through December 2018.
Weirather competed in two events at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, and finished 33rd in the super-G, but did not finish in the downhill. She had qualified to ski in four events at the 2010 Winter Olympics: downhill, super-G, giant slalom, and the combined. Just weeks before the Olympics on 23 January, while competing in a World Cup downhill at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Weirather suffered another anterior cruciate ligament injury to her right knee and missed the Olympics, as well as the following World Cup season of 2011.
Following years of training alongside her compatriots on the Liechtenstein Alpine Ski team, Weirather now trains with the Swiss team.
During the fourth training run for the downhill at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Weirather crashed at Rosa Khutor on 9 February and injured her lower right leg.[The bone contusion caused her to miss her starts in the Olympics and the remainder of the 2014 World Cup season. At the time, she was second in the World Cup overall, downhill and super-G standings and third in the giant slalom
She added:
"Last autumn I was cleaning out my office and I found an old book, back from when I worked with a sports psychologist and on one page I found a pyramid of goals - short-, middle- and long-term goals which I wrote when I was 17.
"When I wrote this, I was 17 years old. I was at home with 2 injured knees - my best World Cup result to date was an 8th place. I was working with a sport psychologist, to get over the fact that I just hurt both my knees. I remember I was a little ashamed of this list... I took care no one saw it, I didn’t want anyone to think I’m crazy. Naive. Unrealistic. I forgot about the book - until I found it again, this fall, cleaning out my office. I had tears in my eyes, cause it seemed like a very far away, but unimaginably beautiful and strong dream back then, and now I can look back and think ‚I did it‘.
"I’m grateful I found this, cause in the process I didn’t feel like achieving everything I wanted - When I won silver, I wanted gold. When I had 2 crystal globes, I wanted a third. That drive makes athletes successful. Yet in the end, if you write down your wildest dreams when you were 17, and they became true - enjoy it, and don’t have any regrets
"For my long-term goals I'd written down: Olympic medal, World Championship medal, World Cup wins in three disciplines and a Crystal Globe and I had tears in my eyes when I realised that I'd reached all of them."
"The time as a ski racer is extremely intense and exhausting and I think I'd overestimate the right moment of retiring.
"I had this idea that I wanted to be at the very top, and healthy, and then say goodbye when in fact when you're at the top you probably don't retire, it's more about the feeling you get for something new.
