It’s strange to wake up in a world where Marcel Hirscher is officially retired.
The defending World Champion of eight consecutive years officially announced his retirement from alpine ski racing in Salzburg, Austria on Wednesday. Hirscher, now thirty years old, has been a dominant presence on the World Cup circuit for over a decade, referred to as ‘Best in the World’ by many fans and fellow athletes alike. However, after a season wherein he defended his overall title, won nine World Cup starts, and obtained podium finishes in another six, Hirscher has decided to step away from the sport.
No one can fault this decision. Hirscher has given everything to this sport and he deserves to experience a retirement in which he can stay active and enjoy time family time with minimal pain or injury. Hirscher stated in his press conference that he “always wanted to stop while still winning races,” and while many are saddened to see him go it seems fitting for the phenom to leave while his living legend status is so vibrant rather than fading out due to accumulated injuries or other possible downfalls.
Marcel Hirscher changed the landscape of alpine ski racing. Sticking strictly to statistics, Hirscher has held an undeniable grip on the sport. Not only did he take home World Championship titles year after year, he did so by massive margins. Brian Pinelli reported in his article for Powder that Hirscher has won the last 4 titles by an unfathomable average margin of 477 points. With accolades such as this, it’s easy to see what an important presence the Overall World Champion of 2012 to 2019 held on the World Cup circuit, but his fellow athletes speak to another vein of Hirscher’s effect on professional ski racing.
Pinelli tweeted that U.S. Ski Team member Ted Ligety had this to say about the impact Hirscher has had on the sport:
Similarly dominant racer Lindsey Vonn commented on twitter that “racing in the same era as [him] has been an honor.”
Mikaela Shiffrin’s comments resonate with me the most, in part I think due to having grown up in the same timeframe as her – a time period where many slalom skiers like us looked to Hirscher as a god. Though her full quote can be found in Facebook post below, she effectively puts into words what I have been feeling while processing this news in these few short sentences.
“Strange how emotional it can feel to say ‘goodbye’ to a retiring athlete, but then again it’s not strange at all. When it’s an athlete you have been learning from and finding inspiration from for your entire career, it’s not strange…. When it’s an athlete who has inspired generations of athletes to come to get up, to fight, and to bring their absolute best every single time, it’s not strange.” via Mikaela Shiffrin on Facebook.
When Felix Neureuther of Team Germany and Frida Hansdotter of Team Sweden both retired at the end of the 2018-2019 season I was sad. With their respective departures from the sport it felt like a part of my life’s foundation was being removed. It sounds dramatic when written out that way but ski racing was a core pillar of my life and identity for upwards of ten years. Therefore, the figures and narratives important to me in ski racing were part of a foundation that helped me develop into who I am today. When these staple athletes of my youth retired it was not only sad, but rather also a reminder to me that growing up is an ever-continuing process. The things and people that shaped you will never lose their importance but, as with everything in life, they yield to time.
This has only become much more unavoidable in the face of Marcel Hirscher retiring.
To step away from the quantifiable accolades Hirscher has accrued over his time on the global stage he has also been responsible for many intangible impacts. Just as he affected the athletes recognizing him above, he had an immense influence on my own personal journey through ski racing. He helped shape who I was as a ski racer. Watching video upon video of him slicing down slalom courses was integral to how I fashioned myself to be throughout an adolescence of scrabbling through hyper-competitive leaderboards. More importantly, he acted as somewhat of a mythic being to which I was paying tribute every day I geared up on the snow. Beyond any technical prowess I sought to gain from his inspiration, Hirscher served to help me define myself. Though I am under no illusions I fall anywhere near his talent, what was important to me was that we were part of the same sport—the same existence. He had a presence, drive, and prowess I took refuge with and sought to emulate. Whenever things got tough and I wavered, he was someone I could look to for inspiration, reassurance, and to remind myself why I was working so hard and how much I loved what I was doing.
For 13 years I was a ski racer and, to me, Marcel Hirscher was ski racing personified.
Though I’ve moved on from the period of my life where ski racing was all I lived, ate, and breathed, I still feel that way and that’s what makes his retirement announcement so difficult for me. Despite having not been a competitive racer for the last several years, my absence from the sport is something that I still grapple with. It was something that defined me for so long, and though I know I made the correct choice about when to retire myself, admitting that it’s no longer a defining characteristic of my life is hard to do. It was something I dedicated full years of my life to that ran up against an expiration date, and closing a chapter like that is incredibly difficult and, on some days, painful. The fact that Marcel Hirscher, the idol from whom I drew a steadying inspiration throughout the entirety of my career, is officially stepping away from the sport and also closing that portion of his life has forced me to re-examine my relationship to ski racing, time, and finality. I’m never going to have those years back, and that’s part of moving on and growing up. Marcel Hirscher’s retirement is a poignant reminder that time continues forward, and we all change and develop with it.
Regardless of what Hirscher means to me or to any of his other fans, fellow athletes, or even critics, what can unequivocally be said is that ski racing has lost a Titan. Though the sport will continue on with a cornucopia of vibrant talent we’ve seen developed over the last several years, there’s something truly special about Marcel. Though there is no one more deserving of a happy and restful retirement than this champion there will doubtlessly be droves of devout followers mourning the loss of their deity regularly doling out reminders of his mythic status on the slopes.