Former slalom world champion Marlies Schild announced yesterday that she is retiring from ski racing, after having won 37 World Cup events and four Olympic medals.
Schild, 33, holds the record as the most successful women’s slalom racer in World Cup history, with 35 wins in the discipline. She lifted the slalom World Cup trophy four times.
“I had noticed in a few races that I could no longer manage perfect slalom turns the way I had done in many previous years,” she said, adding that the last two years of her career had put increasing strain on her body.
Schild won the 2011 slalom world title and a team gold in 2007, plus five silver and bronze medals. She medalled at the last three Olympics, taking slalom silver in 2010 and 2014, plus slalom bronze and super-combined silver in 2006.
In her career, Schild had to fight not only against her competitors but with many injuries.
At the time of her World Cup debut in December 2001, she had already gone through five knee operations, and she staged two comebacks after a leg fracture in 2008 and another knee injury in 2012.
“Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a fighter, and that I’ve always found ways to return to top achievements,” an emotional Schild said in her farewell press conference that was broadcast live on Austrian television.
Schild said her departure would not leave a gap in women’s skiing, pointing to US racer Mikaela Shiffrin, the 2014 Olympic slalom champion, as a worthy successor.
Schild said she did not yet have any future career plans.
“My biggest wish is of course to start a family,” said the long-time girlfriend of 36-year-old Austrian skier Benjamin Raich, who has said he will continue racing for one more season.
