{"id":112444,"date":"2026-08-06T17:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/112444\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T17:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T17:34:15","slug":"swiss-ski-great-lara-gut-behrami-retires-after-olympic-gold-and-world-titles-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/112444\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss ski great Lara Gut-Behrami retires after Olympic gold and world titles"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERN \u2013 Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion Lara Gut-Behrami<\/a> announced her retirement from Alpine skiing on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Her 48 World Cup wins \u2014 24 in super-G \u2014 are the fifth most all-time for women. She was the overall World Cup champion in 2016 and 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Gut-Behrami said in statement.<\/p>\n

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

The Milan Cortina Olympics was due to be her fourth Winter Games, with skiing on the Cortina d\u2019Ampezzo course where she took the two world golds in 2021, along with a bronze in downhill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider that a knee injury, as complex as it is, cannot be considered a tragedy,\u201d Gut-Behrami said then in a statement that noted recent deaths of young skiers<\/a> who crashed in training.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter almost 20 years in elite sport, and despite the crashes and injuries I have experienced, I am fortunate not to suffer from recurring pain \u2014 and I want to keep it that way,\u201d she said about her retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also missed the 2010 Vancouver Olympics because of a serious hip injury and tore her left ACL<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Alpine skiing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/alpine-skiing<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERN \u2013 Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion Lara Gut-Behrami announced her retirement from Alpine skiing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[54830,307,17,54829,54831],"class_list":["post-112444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-lara-gut-behrami","tag-sports","tag-switzerland","tag-valon-behrami","tag-vreni-schneider"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117049770877479760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}