Marc Berthod retires after 13-year World Cup career

World Championship bronze medalist, two-time Adelboden World Cup winner, and 2003 World Junior Champion Marc Berthod has decided to retire from the sport after consecutive serious knee injuries cut the 32-year-old Swiss racer’s past two seasons short.

“The time has come for me to take a new path,” Berthod said after 13 years on the circuit. “I am no longer willing to undergo the necessary training that is needed for another comeback. My mind and body are tired of the many years as a professional athlete, and the serious injuries in recent years have greatly warn me down.”

Berthod suffered his first major knee injury in December of 2014, tearing his left ACL in Santa Caterina, Italy. With dreams of ending his career at his home mountain of St. Moritz at the World Championships in 2017, Berthod returned to the World Cup only to reinjure his knee this past January. Berthod finally chose to retire only after he completed his summer training in order to see if his body could once again return to snow.

“I find it difficult to let competitive skiing go because I have lived it with absolute passion,” he explained. “But at the moment, I see no future as a successful professional athlete and therefore, I have chosen to put the racing skis in the basement. I consider this step not as a loss, but as a logical and natural consequence of my current physical condition. The skiing and the competition circus will always remain in my heart!”

Berthod made his World Cup debut in January of 2003 in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia and went on to win the World Junior Championship slalom later that year in Montgenevre, France. After a somewhat inconsistent start to his World Cup career, Berthod enjoyed a breakout 2006-07 season, which saw him take his first podium, finishing second in the Beaver Creek super combined. Less than two months later, he shocked the world by winning the Adelboden slalom from an almost-impossible-to-believe bib 60 with a blistering second run.

Berthod also managed to snag a bronze medal in the 2007 World Championship super combined in Are, Sweden, and then won the Adelboden giant slalom the following season to kickstart his career. The Swiss athlete enjoyed several years as one of the best technical and combined racers on the World Cup before various ailments caused Berthod’s world rank to slip. He was on a steady return to the top ranks of the World Cup before he suffered his injury in 2014.

“It was a super nice time, but now I look forward to a new life,” Berthod concluded.

According to Swiss-Ski, Berthod has already started coach’s training and plans to stay involved with the sport at some level going forward.

Swiss-Ski was a source for this article.