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Farewell to an era – Nordic athletes say goodbye

Every fourth year, the FIS disciplines have a season marked by the absence of World Championships and Olympic Games, which often encourages the retirement of top athletes who decide to bring down the curtain on their distinguished careers in the spring prior. This year is no exception. The retiring stars include many that have played a key role in defining the sport of skiing in the past years. Here is an overview of a few of them in the three FIS Nordic disciplines that have come to the attention of the FIS Newsflash:

Cross-Country

The upcoming World Cup season 2011/2012 will take place without some major Cross-Country stars. These include the triple sprint World Cup winner, World Championship and Olympic medalist Petra Majdic from Slovenia. Wearing "Goodbye, I love you" on her back at the World Cup Final in Falun, Majdic concluded an amazing career in the age of 31 years. Despite not always having luck on her side, the charismatic skier took two sprint medals at the FIS World Championships - a silver medal in 2007 and a bronze medal in 2011. She also won, with enormous effort the bronze medal in sprint at the 2010 Games, after an injury sustained just before the race.. 

With 2009 sprint world champion Arianna Follis (ITA, 33), 2006 Olympic team sprint champion Lina Andersson (SWE, 30) and 2001 sprint world champion Pirjo Muranen (former Manninen, FIN, 30), another three top athletes will retire to turn focus to other challenges. In addition, French skier Celia Bourgeois, who started her career as biathlete, announced retirement last week in the age of 28.

On the men's side, 2005 world champion Vincent Vittoz (35)  retired from professional skiing after the French national championships. The Frenchman always skied with passion and heart, competing at World Cup level for the past 16 years. He won, besides his world champion title in pursuit, seven individual World Cup competitions and collected a total of 23 World Cup podiums. Vittoz's long-term teammate, Emmanuel Jonnier (35), too, announced his retirement. Jonnier can look back to a great career with three World Cup podiums and several top 5 spots in title events.

Ski Jumping

In Ski Jumping, the retiring athletes celebrated a total of 100 World Cup victories, participated in 1553 individual World Cup competitions, achieved 261 podium results, and won 14 medals both at the FIS World Championships and Olympic Games. Michael Uhrmann (GER, 32), Adam Malysz (POL, 33), Janne Ahonen (FIN, 33), Andreas Kuettel (SUI, 31), Primoz Peterka (SLO, 32), and Harri Olli (FIN, 26) as well as Remy Francais (SUI, 22) have now ended their careers.

While Olli and Francais never completely realized their outstanding talent, the other five represent a true end of an era in Ski Jumping.

Michael Uhrmann was always there when his team needed him, becoming Olympic champion with the team in 2002 and team world champion in 2001. However, whenever "Uhri" was on his way to the very top, destiny played a trick on him. He missed an Olympic medal on the normal hill in 2006 only by 0.1 points. In 2007, he was in the form of his life when he fell in training at the World Championships and was injured. 2011 in Oslo he was close to gold in the team competition, had a bad jump and then the final round was cancelled - finishing fourth! It turned out to be the final jump of his career.

Janne Ahonen won everything and more than once. Five time winner of the 4-Hills-Tournament, two time overall World Cup winner with three World Championship titles. The Finn only lacks the crowning achievement, an Olympic gold, in his palmares.

Andreas Kuettel was always, in a pleasant way, different from the other jumpers. Always knowing the right things to say in every microphone, he also knew that Ski Jumping isn't everything. Most of the time in the shadow of his more famous countryman Simon Ammann, there was probably no athlete who was not happy for Andreas when he became world champion on the large hill in Liberec 2009.

Primoz Peterka had his best days a while ago. In his last season he competed in the Continental Cup. At the peak of his career, he fought for victories with Ahonen and Co., leading his home country to bronze medals at World Championships and Olympic Games.

Last but certainly not least, Adam Malysz, collected medals during a decade from Lahti 2001 to Oslo 2011. Malysz truly retireed in top form, with 39 World Cup victories, three World Championship medals and four Olympic medals in his bag and a third place finish in his final competition in Planica!

Nordic Combined

The season 2011/2012 for Nordic Combined will get underway without some charismatic personalities such as the Austrian Olympic champion Felix Gottwald (35) and four-time world champion Ronny Ackermann (GER, 33). Also leaving the active part of the Nordic Combined family are Ronny Heer (SUI, 30), 2009 team world champion Norihito Kobayashi (JPN, 28), Sebastian Haseney (GER, 32), Petter Tande (NOR, 25) and Ole-Christian Wendel (NOR, 19).

Another Combined athlete moving to Ski Jumping is Kaarel Nurmsalu from Estonia, who follows in the footsteps of David Zauner (AUT) and Anssi Koivuranta (FIN) who already successfully changed from Nordic Combined to Ski Jumping.

Includes contributions by Sandra Spitz, Horst Nilgen and Egon Theiner

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