Olympic ski champion Marcel Hirscher, winner of eight overall titles, retires

VIENNA – Marcel Hirscher's greatest wish was to let Alpine skiing win.

On Wednesday, she is the two-time Austrian Olympic champion.

Hirscher, the first skier to win eight World Cup overall titles, announced live on Austrian national television that he was retiring after dominating his sport for over ten years.

"I've always wanted to finish my career as long as I won races. I did not want to watch when the situation worsened, "said Hirscher, 30, who won gold at the Olympic Games in Giant Slalom and Alpine Combined at Pyeongchang in 2018." My decision was to two weeks. I think it's good like that. That seems right to me.

The retirement of Hirscher is not a surprise.

In last season's World Cup final in March, he openly questioned his own motivation to seek more titles, after voicing similar doubts a year ago.

After marrying his girlfriend Laura Moisl and becoming a father in 2018, he said that "blue and red are not the most important things in life", referring to the colors of the doors of a race slalom.

"Many people did not take me seriously when I talked about the possibility of retiring," Hirscher said, adding that he had many potential projects on which he could start work "but nothing is concrete yet."

Running the circuit with his own team of 10 people, including father Ferdinand as coach, Hirscher has dominated the sport for so long that he is certain to remember him as one of the greatest of all time. No other skier has won more than five titles overall.

Hirscher won eight, although he has rarely raced in super-G and has not made any career cuts to the World Cup. But he has excelled in slalom and GS and has won a total of 12 season titles in technical disciplines.

He won his sixth consecutive World Cup finals in Aspen.

Hirscher won 67 of his 245 World Cup races, beating only Ingemar Stenmark (86) and Lindsey Vonn (82).

He has also won 14 medals at major championships, including nine gold.

"The reality became bigger than my dreams when I started skiing in my childhood," Hirscher said.

Hirscher, who has been competing at the World Cup since 2007, started winning races in 2009, the year of Hermann Maier's retirement – another icon of Austrian alpine skiing -.

Sponsored by the same bank, Hirscher and Maier have since appeared in many television commercials.

One of his most moving victories was his gold medal race in slalom at the world championships in Schladming in 2013. The Austrians had failed to win an individual home race but Hirscher resisted the pressure of the mad nation of skiing he delivered in the final slalom.

Hirscher made headlines around the world in December 2015, after narrowly escaping an abnormal crash during a night slalom in Italy when a drone equipped with a television camera fell down and it's broken on the icy slope a few meters behind him.

The incident prompted the FIS to ban camera drones from its races.

Recognized for following one of the toughest training regimes on the ski circuit, Hirscher has managed to avoid major injuries during his career, unlike many of his competitors.

"I want to be able to play football with my child, I want to ride a bike, I want to go hiking in the mountains," said Hirscher. "Now, I can always do all those things."

The Austrian was a victim of a scaphoid fracture that excluded him from the world championships in 2011. He fractured an ankle during preparation until 2017- 18, but has won a record 13 races in the World Cup and two Olympic gold medals this season.

Many skiers reacted to Hirscher's retirement on social networks.

"It's a difficult year for ski racing, the legend (Marcel Hirscher) has announced his retirement," wrote on Twitter the American Lindsey Vonn, who ended his career in February. "Congratulations on an amazing career, my friend. Running at the same time as you was an honor. 8 titles in the overall standings is a record that no one will ever beat! "

Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, who won two overall titles before the start of Hirscher's domination, called him "the absolute honor to compete with you … the greatest skier of all time." Congratulations on an amazing career. "

In a video message broadcast on television, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said: "It's a shame, but it's the right decision, you can not achieve more than what you have achieved."

The departure of Hirscher leaves a huge difference in the Austrian men's ski team, which has struggled to develop other high-level skiers in recent years. The president of the Austrian Ski Federation, Peter Schroecksnadel, said "it is never possible" to actually replace a champion like Hirscher, Maier, Benjamin Raich or Stephen Eberharter.

"Of course, Marcel leaves a void, but others will develop," said Schroecksnadel.

The search for a new World Cup champion starts on October 27 with the traditional giant slaloms on the Rettenbach Glacier in Soelden, Austria.