Austrian Stephanie Venier is retiring from Alpine skiing, six months after winning her first senior world title and six months before the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Venier, 31, said she considered retirement “for some time” and that recurring knee problems played a role in the decision.
“As the saying goes: The peak of your career is the best time to retire,” she said, according to a translation of an Austrian ski federation press release. “That’s why I’m turning my back on ski racing and am very much looking forward to everything that’s still to come.”
This past Feb. 6, Venier won the super-G at the World Championships on home snow in Saalbach, edging Italian Federica Brignone by one tenth of a second.
Venier, at the time ranked ninth in the World Cup super-G standings, earned her second world championships medal — eight years after taking downhill silver.
She became the oldest woman to win a world super-G title and the oldest Austrian woman to win world championships gold in any individual event.
“The thought of ending my career isn’t entirely new and has been brewing in my mind for some time,” she said, according to Thursday’s release. “But I wanted to take enough time for this drastic decision, because once I’ve made it, there’s no turning back. The unwavering will required for elite sport has simply not been there in recent months to the extent I expect it to be. I more than fulfilled my greatest dream of winning a medal at the home World Championships in Saalbach with a gold and a bronze (in the team combined). Even though the Olympic Games are coming up next year, it feels like the right time for me to draw a line under my racing career. I look back on what I’ve achieved with great satisfaction.”
The top women’s super-G skiers include Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, who won the World Cup season title in the event. Gut-Behrami has said 2025-26 will be her final campaign.
Brignone ranked second behind Gut-Behrami on the World Cup. The Italian is working her way back after breaking her left leg in a giant slalom crash on April 3.
The top American super-G skiers are Lauren Macuga, who shared bronze at worlds and ranked sixth on the World Cup, and Lindsey Vonn, who placed second in the World Cup Finals super-G in March.
That marked Vonn’s first podium in her comeback from a five-year retirement.
