“I don’t want anymore”
Ski talent ends career at the age of 22
Updated on 12.03.2025 – 9:28 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
As a 17-year-old, Philip Hoffmann won the gold medal in the Olympic Youth Games in Lausanne. Everything is over five years later.
Philip Hoffmann stops: The young ski racer ends his career. This was announced by the 22 -year -old athlete in conversation with the “Kleine Zeitung”. “Yes, it’s over. I don’t want to. The motivation and the drive are gone,” said Hoffmann about his career.
The Austrian fights with mixed feelings: “I fluctuate between relief and that it was still difficult for me, but it is the right one because the pressure was not without.”
At the Olympic Youth Games in Lausanne 2020, Hoffmann won the gold medal in the giant slalom and was 2.54 seconds before the second place. Therefore, the young Austrian was considered a great talent. But as a result of the third Corona vaccination two years later, according to his own statement, he felt weak. “I was not particularly physically. It took a lot and took a long time until I caught up halfway,” he told the “small newspaper”.
Hoffmann continued to take part in FIS competitions, but he could not celebrate really great international success. He was not allowed to compete with the big names like Marco Odermatt or Henrik Kristoffersen. “I didn’t get any more missions, although I didn’t quite understand some arguments, and then I also pass the fun,” said Hoffmann. “I knew that the path would be stony, but I didn’t imagine it that complicated. It was a cramp in the end, and forced something.”
Now it should continue for him away from the ski slope, away from competitive sports. “The changeover will be a bit unusual, but now a new section is waiting for me.”