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Viktoria Rebensburg, Olympic giant slalom champion, retires

Viktoria Rebensburg

Germany’s Viktoria Rebensburg celebrates during the winner’s ceremony of the FIS Alpine Women Skiing World Cup in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, southern Germany, on February 8, 2020. (Photo by Christof STACHE / AFP) (Photo by CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Viktoria Rebensburg, the 2010 Olympic giant slalom champion from Germany, announced her retirement from Alpine skiing on Tuesday.

“Today is certainly not an easy day for me, as I have decided to end my career with immediate effect after 13 years,” was posted on her social media. “I made this decision with a heavy heart & after much consideration over the last few weeks.”

Rebensburg, a 30-year-old with 19 World Cup wins, said that, after an unspecified injury in the spring and two months of on-snow training, she wouldn’t be able to reach her absolute top level.

“From a very young age, it has always been my ambition & incentive to compete for success & to inspire you on the slopes,” she posted. “But now that I have the feeling that I can no longer live up to this, this is a very difficult but inevitable decision for me.”

Rebensburg suffered a fracture in one of her tibias on Feb. 9 in a World Cup super-G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, about 40 miles west of her hometown in the Bavarian Alps. The day before she won a World Cup downhill.

Rebensburg is the last 2010 Olympic women’s Alpine medalist to retire. Mikaela Shiffrin, who developed into a rival to Rebensburg in the GS, is the lone Olympic women’s champion from 2010 or 2014 still active.

Rebensburg won the Vancouver Olympic GS by .04 after Lindsey Vonn crashed out, Julia Mancuso was forced to take a re-run and a weather delay pushed the second run to the following day. Rebensburg notched her first World Cup podium two weeks before those Winter Games.

She also won world championships GS silver medals in 2015 and 2019 and three World Cup season titles in the discipline. Her best World Cup overall finish was third in 2016 and 2018.

MORE: North American races dropped from 2020 Alpine World Cup schedule

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