Swiss Ski Great Lara Gut-Behrami Retires at 35

Lara Gut-Behrami, the Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion from Switzerland, announced her retirement from Alpine skiing on Thursday.

The speed specialist won the super-G gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, one of three career Olympic medals, and took the 2021 world titles in super-G and giant slalom. Her 48 World Cup victories — 24 of them in super-G — are the fifth most all time among women. She was the overall World Cup champion in 2016 and 2024.

"I 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," Gut-Behrami said in a statement.

The 35-year-old had planned to retire at the end of last season in March but was unable to compete after a severe knee injury sustained in a training crash at Copper Mountain, Colorado, in November. She ruptured ligaments in her left knee and damaged the meniscus.

The Milan Cortina Olympics would have been her fourth Winter Games, with the Alpine events staged on the Cortina d'Ampezzo course where she won her two world golds in 2021, along with a bronze in downhill.

"I consider that a knee injury, as complex as it is, cannot be considered a tragedy," Gut-Behrami said at the time, in a statement that noted the recent deaths of young skiers who crashed in training.

"After almost 20 years in elite sport, and despite the crashes and injuries I have experienced, I am fortunate not to suffer from recurring pain — and I want to keep it that way," she said of her decision. "This 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."

She also missed the 2010 Vancouver Olympics because of a serious hip injury and tore her left ACL at the 2017 world championships in St. Moritz, crashing in warmups for the slalom run of the combined event after placing third in the downhill that morning.

Since her first season in 2008, Gut-Behrami reached 101 podiums in 395 World Cup races. Her 48 wins are second among Swiss women to Vreni Schneider, a slalom specialist of the 1980s and 1990s.

Gut-Behrami has previously said she intends to move to England, where her husband, former Switzerland midfielder Valon Behrami, works in the front office at second-tier club Watford.