Speed Queen announces surprise retirement

The Speed Queen is pregnant.

Austrian ski racing star, Renate Goetschl, the very definition of an era of World Cup racing with 46 World Cup wins, and five World Cup downhill titles, has happily announced her retirement days after her 34th birthday.

Austrian team director Hans Pum is quoted on the team’s website saying motherhood is “naturally one of the most beautiful reasons to terminate a career.”

Goetschl was within five podium placings of setting the all time record for top three World Cup finishes with 110, behind only the great Annemarie Moser Proell, and was just eight races begin Martina Ertl for the most races entered. She had been a stalwart on the Austrian team since 1991 and earned two Olympic medals and three World Championship gold medals.
The Speed Queen is pregnant.

Austrian ski racing star, Renate Goetschl, the very definition of an era of World Cup racing with 46 World Cup wins, and five World Cup downhill titles, has happily announced her retirement days after her 34th birthday.

Austrian team director Hans Pum is quoted on the team’s website saying motherhood is “naturally one of the most beautiful reasons to terminate a career.”

Goetschl was within five podium placings of setting the all time record for top three World Cup finishes with 110, behind only the great Annemarie Moser Proell, and was just eight races begin Martina Ertl for the most races entered. She had been a stalwart on the Austrian team since 1991 and earned two Olympic medals and three World Championship gold medals.

She is third all time among women in World Cup wins, her total of 46 matching that of five time World Cup champion Marc Girardelli.

The 2000 World Cup overall champion represents the pinnacle of toughness as well as speed, having raced at the end of the 2007 season with a broken tibia and torn cartilage in her right knee. She was dominant at the Italian resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo having won there nine times including downhill victories in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

That wasn’t the only World Cup site she seemed to own. The Calgary Sun is credited with presenting Goetschl with the nickname “Speed Queen” after she won back to back downhills at Lake Louise in the winter of 1998.

Goetschl made her announcement in the company of friend Hannes Kargl.

After nearly two decades in the limelight she told the Austrian Standard she was looking forward to a private life. The couple is expecting the baby “in the Spring.”