Lara Gut-Behrami, the star Swiss ski racer and Olympic champion, is sticking to her retirement plan after an ACL injury kept her out of the latest Winter Games and the 2025-26 competition season, which she previously said would be her last.
“I had the luck and the honor to be able to experience a very long career, to express my dreams and wishes through my skiing and to experience this journey alongside extraordinary people,” Gut-Behrami told the TV channel RSI, according to a press release published by the Swiss Ski Federation.
She also said that despite her years spent at the top of ski racing—a famously bruising discipline—she had no chronic pain.
“That is also why I know the time has come…. trying to force my body and mind to endure and manage pain would only tarnish the image I carry within me of something I have pursued with such passion,” she said, per the AFP.
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At just 16 years old, Gut-Behrami debuted on the World Cup stage in 2007 in Lienz, Austria, in the giant slalom. She missed her qualification for the second run.
But only weeks later, she was standing on the podium, having claimed third in a St. Moritz, Switzerland, downhill. Her first World Cup win came the next season, again in St. Moritz.
It would be the first win of many.
Throughout her career, she earned 101 World Cup podiums, including 48 victories, cementing her as one of the most decorated alpine racers of all time. The overall leader, Mikalea Shiffrin, has 110 by a wide margin.
Gut-Behrami also won three Olympic medals: one gold and two bronze.
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Despite her success, she never felt pressure to be a champion, according to her website. Born in the village of Lugano, Gut-Behrami’s childhood involved sports of all kinds, from biking to swimming and, of course, skiing.
“I don’t think there was ever a day without some form of sport,” she wrote.
And while going from youth racing to the World Cup required “countless training runs, some pain, doubts, conflicts, and moments when I questioned whether I was on the right path,” Gut-Behrami wrote, one thing never changed: “I always loved the feeling of a perfect turn on my skis.”
