End of career due to illness
German ski racer retires at the age of 36
03/25/2026 – 10:51 amReading time: 2 minutes
Alpine ski ace Andreas Sander has received a serious diagnosis. Now he is drawing the line.
The German ski racer Andreas Sander has ended his career. The 36-year-old suffers from mitochondrial dysfunction – a disease in which the energy suppliers of the body’s cells do not function properly. He “tried everything to be able to do competitive sports again,” said Sander. “Although I’m feeling much better in everyday life now, my goal of racing at World Cup level is still not possible.”
The illness was diagnosed in the summer of 2024 and temporarily weakened him so much that he could only go for walks and had to sit down again and again. He contested his last World Cup race in February 2024 in Kvitfjell, Norway.
Since his World Cup debut in March 2008, the Sauerlander has competed in 197 races. Sander celebrated his greatest success in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2021: He won World Championship silver in the downhill, just a hundredth of a second behind the Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr. He reached the World Cup podium twice. First he narrowly missed victory at the Super-G in Aspen in 2023. At the World Cup final of the same year, Sander and Romed Baumann took second and third place in the downhill – the first time in 31 years that two Germans were on the winner’s podium.
DSV sports director Wolfgang Maier acknowledged the resignation with the words: “Even though Andi was not granted the big victory by just a hundredth of a second, he shaped the DSV speed team over many years with his successes and his consistency. Andi was a supporting pillar as an athlete and person of the team.”
Sander deliberately left his professional future open. “At the moment I would like to concentrate on my health situation and on the fact that things continue to improve. Basically, I am and will certainly remain connected to skiing.”
Sander celebrates his official farewell at the International German Alpine Ski Championships in Axamer Lizum in Tyrol.
