World Cup retirements
Thu, Apr 21, 2011 - By FIS
Every fourth year, the FIS disciplines have a season marked by the absence of World Championships and Olympic Games, which often encourages the retirement of top athletes who decide to bring down the curtain on their distinguished careers in the spring prior.
This year is no exception. The retiring stars include many that have played a key role in defining the sport of skiing in the past years.
The upcoming World Cup season 2011/2012 will take place without some major Cross-Country stars. These include the triple sprint World Cup winner, World Championship and Olympic medalist Petra Majdic from Slovenia. Wearing “Goodbye, I love you” on her back at the World Cup Final in Falun, Majdic concluded an amazing career in the age of 31 years. Despite not always having luck on her side, the charismatic skier took two sprint medals at the FIS World Championships – a silver medal in 2007 and a bronze medal in 2011. She also won, with enormous effort the bronze medal in sprint at the 2010 Games, after an injury sustained just before the race.
With 2009 sprint world champion Arianna Follis (ITA, 33), 2006 Olympic team sprint champion Lina Andersson (SWE, 30) and 2001 sprint world champion Pirjo Muranen (former Manninen, FIN, 30), another three top athletes will retire to turn focus to other challenges. In addition, French skier Celia Bourgeois, who started her career as biathlete, announced retirement last week in the age of 28.
On the men’s side, 2005 world champion Vincent Vittoz (35) retired from professional skiing after the French national championships. The Frenchman always skied with passion and heart, competing at World Cup level for the past 16 years. He won, besides his world champion title in pursuit, seven individual World Cup competitions and collected a total of 23 World Cup podiums. Vittoz’s long-term teammate, Emmanuel Jonnier (35), too, announced his retirement. Jonnier can look back to a great career with three World Cup podiums and several top 5 spots in title events.