After serious injuries
Swiss ski ace announces end of career
Updated 01/12/2026 – 01:01 amReading time: 2 minutes
Ski racer Andrea Ellenberger ends her career at the age of 32.
Her last season was canceled due to injury – now the athlete is looking forward.
Swiss ski racer Andrea Ellenberger announced her retirement from top-level sport via Instagram on Friday. The 32-year-old giant slalom specialist was seriously injured at the end of 2024. Now she is drawing a line under her career in the Ski World Cup.
“After 20 years of giving my heart to skiing, I say goodbye,” Ellenberger wrote in an emotional post. She had to accept “that I will not achieve all the goals I have set for myself.” For Ellenberger it is clear: there will be no return to the World Cup slopes. “Still, I leave the sport full of gratitude,” she wrote.
In December 2024, she broke her right leg in a training fall. A torn cruciate ligament and a damaged meniscus were also discovered on the other leg. It wasn’t her first serious injury. Ellenberger has already had four cruciate ligament tears.
Her decision to retire has matured, it says between the lines: “It was not an easy decision. Letting go of a dream that has shaped my life for so long requires time, honesty and courage. Injuries forced me to stop, think and accept that not every goal I had once set for myself could be achieved,” the athlete wrote in her post.
Andrea Ellenberger became team world champion in Åre in 2019 and finished eleventh twice in the World Cup – her best individual results. For years she was part of the extended circle of the Swiss Ski team, especially in the giant slalom. But Ellenberger never just stood for sport, but also for vision: In addition to her career as an athlete, she completed a master’s degree in psychology and gained professional experience as a school special education teacher in her home community.
Most recently, she worked for the international ski association FIS – she transcribed radio messages from various teams that were shown on TV. Now she wants to dedicate herself to new challenges: “Ski racing was never just a sport for me. It was my passion, a privilege and my way of life. Now a new chapter begins: emotional and full of quiet hope.”