Lara Gut-Behrami finishes her last World Alpine Skiing Championships with a record
Gut-Behrami, 33, earned team combined silver on Tuesday at her ninth and final World Championships, then placed fifth in Thursday's giant slalom in Saalbach, Austria.
Gut-Behrami said before the competition that it would be her final worlds, the Swiss Ski Federation confirmed.
She is expected to race next season and go for a fourth Olympics in 2026, but there is no guarantee and she is focused on this season for now, according to the federation.
Gut-Behrami has raced on the highest level since age 16.
Her first big splash came at age 17 with a pair of world championships silver medals in 2009, making her one of the top challengers to Lindsey Vonn going into the 2010 Olympics. But she missed the Vancouver Games after dislocating her right hip in a September 2009 training crash.
She won two World Cup races total over a four-year stretch but re-emerged in the 2013-14 season with seven World Cup victories and her first Olympic medal, downhill bronze.
Gut-Behrami followed that by winning the World Cup overall title in 2016. She then suffered a season-ending ACL tear with meniscus damage in her left knee in a warm-up at the 2017 World Championships while in second place in the overall standings behind Mikaela Shiffrin, who went on to win her first overall title that season.
Gut-Behrami came back again. Between Jan. 10 and Feb. 27 of 2021, she won six World Cup races, plus world titles in the super-G and giant slalom in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, which will be the women's Alpine venue for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
She won her first Olympic gold in the super-G in 2022 by 22 hundredths of a second over Austrian Mirjam Puchner.
Last season, she became the oldest woman to win a World Cup overall title, a record that will likely be broken this season by Italian Federica Brignone.
This week, she broke the women's record for most World Championships races started. Her 34 starts are two more than Tina Maze had in her career.
Gut-Behrami has one World Cup race victory this season.
Tim Layden,
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