Wave of retirements one year before the Olympics in their own country: Next alpine skiing star calls it quits
Italy - Their star is seriously injured, four athletes have already resigned: Less than a year before the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, host country Italy is currently being hit by a wave of resignations in alpine skiing .
Petra Unterholzner (25) is the fourth athlete to announce the end of her career after the season. She wrote on Instagram a few days ago: "Peti out. Words can't express how grateful I am for these moments and memories," she explained about a highlight video that showed her on the local and international ski slopes.
Unterholzner's specialty was the slalom. She was once considered a great talent, but in recent years she has had a difficult time. She didn't make it into the Italian World Cup team and had to fight her way through the European Cup alone, away from the big support.
Manuel Ploner (24), Vivien Insam (27) and Vera Tschurtschentahler (28) had already ended their careers before her. She was also a slalom specialist and competed in the World Cup, but was recently dropped from the national team due to a lack of results.
"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles. The praise belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marked by dust and sweat and blood, who always comes up short, who sacrifices himself for a worthy cause," she wrote on her Instagram account, quoting former US President Theodore Roosevelt (†60).
Alpine skiing: Whether Italy's star Federica Brignone will be fit in time for the Olympics is written in the stars
In addition to the four retirements, the whole of skiing Italy is currently worried about its big star Federica Brignione (34).
After the official end of the World Cup season at the Italian Championships, the Milanese skier suffered an extremely serious injury. As a result of a fall, she suffered a fractured tibia and fibula as well as a torn cruciate ligament in her left knee .
Brignone had won gold in the giant slalom at the World Championships in Saalbach, as well as silver in the super-G. Whether she will be able to compete at the Winter Olympics in her own country (February 6 to 22, 2026) is still up in the air following her injury.
"At the moment, I have to take it step by step and my first thought now is to get healthy and start training again," she recently said at a media day organized by the Italian Ski Federation.