She just wanted to ski

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Viktoria Rebensburg in 2016 at one of her World Cup victories in Flachau

Photo: 

Stanko Gruden / Agence Zoom / Getty Images

There are many ways to announce your retirement from competitive sports.

Viktoria Rebensburg has chosen a path that suits her.

In a video distributed on Twitter, she stands on the meadow where she learned to ski.

Rebensburg, 30, wears a jacket with no sponsor imprint and speaks - without hiding her Bavarian accent - of a circle that would now come full circle for her.

It all started here, and here she is now announcing that her career is over.

Without glamor, without self-staging, but authentic and with closeness to what is important to her: skiing.

In the past few weeks she has come to realize that she is no longer among the best in the world.

"After my injury in spring and the past two months in snow training, I noticed that I was no longer able to reach my absolute top level," says Rebensburg in the video.

You always wanted to race for victories.

"Since I now have the feeling that I can no longer live up to this, this is a very difficult decision, but for me it is inevitable."

Rebensburg competed in the Alpine Ski World Cup for 13 years.

At the 2007 World Cup in Åre, Sweden, her eighth place in the giant slalom indicated her potential for the first time.

The greatest success of her career followed three years later: victory at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, again in the giant slalom.

In 2014 Rebensburg won Olympic bronze in Sochi, she secured two silver medals at World Championships, and in the World Cup she was at the top 19 times.

The German Ski Association (DSV) will miss Rebensburg extremely, especially in the coming winter when another world championship is due in Cortina d'Ampezzo - there are currently no youngsters with a chance of victory in the women's squad.

Rebensburg has more World Cup victories than Felix Neureuther

Rebensburg is one of the best German skiers in history.

She has celebrated more World Cup victories than Felix Neureuther (13) or Markus Wasmeier (9), in the women's category only Katja Seizinger, Maria Höfl-Riesch and Hilde Gerg were more successful.

And yet in the past Rebensburg was rarely mentioned in the same breath as these DSV grandees - let alone with "Gold-Rosi" Mittermeier.

I guess that's okay with her, but is that fair?

Neureuther and Wasmeier, these Bavarian Gaudi nature lads, had the gender advantage on their side.

Seizinger was born in the flat country and moved out of Datteln in the Ruhr area to conquer the world of skiing.

Höfl-Riesch lived from her rivalry with Lindsey Vonn, while Gerg was simply the "Wilde Hilde".

And Rebensburg?

There was probably no story or staging for the public.

Born at Tegernsee, customs officer, little known about private life.

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Viktoria Rebensburg

Photo: 

Michael Kappeler / picture alliance / dpa

In terms of sport, Rebensburg deserved more attention.

Even in her early years, the Olympic champion drove more aggressively than her colleagues in the technical disciplines.

She had one of the fastest turns in the giant slalom, benefited from her technical superiority for many years, and sometimes just drove a little too aggressively.

That alone could have been enough for the sustainable marketing of their successes, considering how often Neureuther took too much risk and left the promising position.

But Rebensburg did not want to be a public star - she simply remained the Viktoria from SC Kreuth.

Rebensburg is criticized by the DSV

Even the development of the all-rounder in her second half of her career was interpreted negatively at times.

Rebensburg had already won a World Cup race in the Super-G for the first time in 2012.

Two years later, she began to put more emphasis on the speed disciplines in training.

But unlike the natural talent Mikaela Shiffrin (USA), who can apparently easily switch from slalom to downhill, something always fell by the wayside at Rebensburg.

If she trained more speed, the giant slalom suffered - and vice versa.

From this mixed situation a conflict arose, which the DSV brought to the public.

At the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, Rebensburg clashed with Alpine Director Wolfgang Maier for the first time when he criticized her for fourth place (giant slalom) and tenth (Super-G) and spoke of lost medal opportunities.

Last winter, Maier followed suit and indirectly accused Rebensburg of laziness in training - although there are only very few female riders in the Ski World Cup who can compete for victories in both the technical and speed disciplines.

Rebensburg called Maier's criticism "absolutely incomprehensible both in terms of content and manner".

Rebensburg might have won more World Cups if she had consistently bet on the giant slalom.

But she didn't want that, she hadn't made any limits for herself.

She just wanted to ski.

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