Lara Gut-Behrami, a three-time time Olympic medalist and reigning Olympic super-G champion, reportedly said she thinks she will retire at some point before the 2026 Winter Games.
Gut-Behrami, a 31-year-old who has raced on the World Cup since age 16, said continuing to compete is not getting any easier and that she can feel her age a little, citing increased physical therapy and back problems, according to Swiss newspaper Blick.
In previous reported interviews, Gut-Behrami said she was taking her career season-by-season and that, on good days, she could see herself at the next Olympics in Italy nearly at age 35. By then she will be older than any previous woman to finish in the top 10 of an Olympic Alpine skiing race, according to Olympedia.org.
Gut-Behrami made her first big splash at age 17 with a pair of world silver medals in 2009, making her one of the top challengers to Lindsey Vonn going into the 2010 Olympics. But she missed those Games after dislocating her right hip in a September 2009 training crash.
She won two World Cup races total over the next four years but re-emerged in the 2013-14 Olympic season with seven World Cup victories and her first Olympic medal, downhill bronze.
She followed that by winning the World Cup overall title in 2016. She then suffered a season-ending ACL tear with meniscus damage in her left knee in a warm-up at the 2017 World Championships while in second place in the overall standings behind Mikaela Shiffrin, who went on to win her first overall that season.
Gut-Behrami came back again. Between Jan. 10 and Feb. 27 of 2021, she won six World Cup races, plus world titles in the super-G and giant slalom in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, which will be the venue for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
She won the Olympic super-G this past February by 22 hundredths of a second over Austrian Mirjam Puchner.
Among active Alpine skiers, Gut-Behrami ranks second behind Shiffrin in world championships medals (eight) and World Cup wins (35).
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