Tiril Eckhoff announces her resignation after a year of suffering.
A biathlon party is fatal for the double Olympic champion.
Oslo – wave of retirements in biathlon: Tiril Eckhoff announces the end of her career at the end of the season.
Only the day before, two winter sports aces, Germany's Olympic champion Denise Herrmann-Wick and record world champion Marte Olsbu Röiseland, announced their retirement.
The health of the double Olympic champion Eckhoff, who has been missing from the World Cup for a year, is putting a spoke in the wheel.
Tirol Eckhoff |
Born: May 21, 1990 (age 32), Bærum, Norway |
Winter sports: biathlon |
Greatest achievements: 8 Olympic medals (2x gold), 15 World Championship medals (10x gold) |
Next resignation: Biathlon superstar Taril Eckhoff will party the undoing
Eckhoff had won the sprint and the pursuit at the season finale last winter in Oslo.
At the following end-of-season party, like many other ski hunters, she became infected with Corona.
And then nothing was the same again.
To this day, she still suffers from extreme sleep problems, which "I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy," the 2021 overall World Cup winner said recently.
Eckhoff is still under medical care, and despite an improvement in her condition, competitive sports are still out of the question.
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Biathlon superstar Tiril Eckhoff announces her resignation.
© Vesa Moilanen/Imago
Next biathlon retirement: Eckhoff has sleep problems
"After many illnesses and a tough year, I feel that the motivation is simply missing.
I've experienced so much and I feel that I don't find the necessary spark to set new goals for myself," said Eckhoff before the season finale on Thursday at home in Holmenkollen in a statement from the Norwegian association.
Double Olympic champion Eckhoff has a total of eight medals at the Winter Games, the ten-time world champion also collected 15 World Championship medals and was among the best in the world for almost ten years.
The Norwegians are now losing their most important top performers in Eckhoff and Röiseland and are facing a difficult new start.
After Herrmann-Wick and Röiseland: Tiril Eckhoff declares the end of his career
In Tiril Eckhoff, the third biathlon Olympic champion announced the end of her career within just two days.
One day after her Norwegian compatriot Marte Olsbu Röiseland and Saxon Denise Herrmann-Wick, the 32-year-old announced on Wednesday that she would not be returning to the World Cup after her compulsory one-year break as a result of a corona infection.
Meanwhile, another Norwegian biathlon legend looks at Germany with pity.
(ck/dpa)
List of rubrics: © Vesa Moilanen/Imago