Swiss veteran hangs up his skis

Marc Gini, a veteran of the Swiss slalom team, finished his career on Sunday at the Swiss National Championships in Davos. The 32-year-old is the last Swiss World Cup winner in this discipline with his win in Reiteralm in 2007. After failing to finish the 2017 season inside of the top 30 in the World Cup slalom rankings, Gini has decided to retire.

“I had planned to go as long as I thought I could win a race again,” Gini said. “It would have been difficult to make this situation.”

Gini will now continue his physiotherapy studies, which began two years ago, and wants to use his experience from 14 years on the World Cup in this area.

The highlight of his career was his World Cup victory in November 2007 in Reiteralm where he bested the likes of Finland’s Kalle Palander and Italy’s Manfred Moelgg. Gini’s next best World Cup result was a fourth-place finish in the 2011 Lenzerheide slalom. He also won four times on the Europa Cup and won six Swiss national titles, four in slalom and one each in alpine combined and giant slalom. In total, Gini started in 124 World Cup races, 101 of them in slalom. Fittingly, Gini’s final World Cup race last month in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, was also the site of his debut all the way back in 2003.

Repeated injuries prevented him from reaching his true potential and held him back throughout his career. Through his performances on the Europa Cup in recent years, he had fought back with an admirable commitment to extend his World Cup career. Unfortunately, three scoring results this season were not sufficient to realize his self-placed goal of finishing the season ranked inside the top 20 in World Cup slalom.

Release from SwissSki