World Cup Ski Season to Open Without Benni Raich

Soelden, Austria – When the World Cup ski racing season kicks off later this month in the Austrian resort of Soelden, one of the circuit’s most enduring figures from the past two decades won’t be leaving the starting gate.

Two-time Olympian Benjamin Raich, 37, announced his retirement from World Cup ski racing in September after 19 years competing for the powerhouse Austrian team.

“I don’t have the motivation anymore to go the limit and you need that in ski racing,” an emotional Raich told reporters at a press conference in Vienna. “I have been training hard and with pleasure all summer. I am top fit, I am healthy. But when I think about racing, about Soelden, I am lacking that motivation.

“It was not an easy decision,” Raich acknowledged. “I have experienced a lot and I was also very successful. But this is a good time to make this decision, it will be a step forward.”

Austrian ski racer Benjamin Raich poses surrounded by his achievements. (photo: ÖSV / Aichner)

Raich’s career included 36 World Cup victories, more than any other current male skier and including the overall title in 2006 after losing to American Bode Miller a year earlier. He finished runner-up in the overall hunt four more times between 2007 and 2010. In 441 World Cup starts Raich finished in the top-10 227 times, four shy of Norwegian skier Kjetil Andre Aamodt’s record of 231.

He has also amassed 14 medals at major championships, including two gold medals at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, in giant slalom and slalom, along with another two bronze Olympic medals in the slalom and combined in Salt Lake City in 2002, and a staggering 10 World Championships medals. Nagging back problems, however, limited Raich to only one victory in the past five years.

Following his marriage to Austrian ski racer Marlies Schild last April, Schild and Raich are presently expecting their first child, and Raich is anticipating fatherhood. “In this role I have to perhaps grow,” he acknowledged. “I think that the future will surely bring some positives. I look forward to what will come. I’ll find something interesting.”

Raich joins prominent Austrian ski racers Mario Matt, Nicole Hosp, Andrea Fischbacher and Kathrin Zettel in announcing their decisions to retire this season.