“The head has had enough” – after 16 years and many ski jumping successes, Maren Lundby puts her skis away. She dominated ski jumping for several years.
Olympic ski jumping champion and two-time world champion Maren Lundby has ended her active career. The 29-year-old Norwegian explained this through tears at a press conference on Monday (December 18, 2023). “The head has had enough”said the ski jumper after 16 years as an active athlete. “I’ve thought about the decision. At the moment I feel like it’s the best thing for me.” As a 14-year-old, Lundby was accepted into the Norwegian national ski jumping team for the first time.
Overall World Cup winner between 2018 and 2020
Lundby dominated the women’s ski jumping competition for several years. Between 2018 and 2020, she won the overall World Cup three times, celebrated 30 individual World Cup victories, won ten World Championship medals and was crowned Olympic champion in Pyeonchang 2018.
World Cup break 2021/22
In recent years, Lundby has made his weight problems and radical diets public and has therefore repeatedly stopped. So she was missing from the 2021/22 World Cup season. According to Lundby, the weight issue is not the main reason for her resignation: “There is too much talk about there being something wrong with my body. I have a well-functioning body”said Lundby, who jumped in the World Cup for the first time in December 2011.
Vice world champion again in 2023
After her break, she returned in the 2022/23 season, but no longer made it onto the podium in the World Cup. Her last big success was a second place on the large hill at the World Championships in Planica in March. Lundby has not yet competed in any World Cup competitions this winter. In her last jump, the Norwegian came 33rd on the large hill at the Grand Prix in Klingenthal in October.
