Austria’s Veith Reveals She Considered Retirement After Latest Knee Injury
Austrian two-time Overall Women’s World Cup Champion Anna Veith was sidelined last January with a torn right ACL suffered in training prior to the Kronplatz giant slalom. The injury forced the World and Olympic Champion to miss the remainder of the World Cup season and the 2019 World Championships in Are, Sweden.
Veith re-injured the same knee that first took her from the top of the World Cup in 2015, triggering a long road back to form and ultimately led to an additional patella surgery in 2017.
At an Austrian press event over the weekend, the 30-year-old disclosed that retiring from the sport after her latest injury was on the table until early in the summer.
“It was not clear to me until the middle of May if I could go on,” said Veith. “I realized how much I miss the sport. That was a point that showed me that it pays to fight.”
Vieth also announced that she will not be starting at the World Cup opener in Soelden on October 26 in order to give her body ample time to recover from her third serious knee surgery in the last four years. Veith, however, is optimistic that this recovery will be much smoother than in years past given the relative simplicity of the injury. Only her ACL was injured as opposed to the more extensive damage her knee suffered in 2015.
“The motivation was much easier this year than the years before,” she added. “Because I realized that the progress has been much faster. This injury is the easiest of those I had.”
Austria, as well as other nations, will be announcing their Soelden starters in the coming weeks.
Some information courtesy of the Austrian Press Agency.