Germany’s most successful Winter Olympic participant Natalie Geisenberger is ending her exceptional sporting career after 16 years. “I have decided to end my career and am looking forward to the winter as a television athlete and passive sledding prospect,” said the 35-year-old six-time Olympic toboggan champion on Sunday in the “Blickpunkt Sport” program on BR television.
The Munich native, who competed in her first World Cup race in Altenberg in January 2007, leaves a big gap in German toboggan sport. Six Olympic gold medals, nine world championship titles and eight overall World Cup triumphs are part of her impressive career. In total, Geisenberger won 37 medals at international competitions, seven of which were Olympic, 16 at the World Championships and 14 at the European Championships. She also won 74 World Cup victories, 52 of which were individual.
“It was a mega, mega time. I was able to enjoy every second and celebrate successes. It was crazy! If someone had told me that in advance, I would have said: Never!” said Geisenberger. “Now I’m looking forward to the future. I think this was the perfect time for me to say: Thank you, that’s it!”
Geisenberger crowned her career at the Winter Olympics in February 2022 when she won gold in the individual and with the team in Beijing – and with a total of six Olympic victories and a bronze medal, she became the most successful German athlete at the Winter Games, together with the doubles Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt. The speed skater Claudia Pechstein (five Olympic victories) had previously claimed this unofficial title.
Shortly after the games, Geisenberger announced her second pregnancy. This January she became a mother for the second time. Geisenberger then left it open as to whether she would make another comeback and did not rule out another participation in the Olympics in 2026. But now she has other priorities. Of her many successes, in addition to the home World Championships in 2016 at Königssee with two golds and one silver, she particularly remembers the individual Olympic victory in Beijing: “To get to the finish line, to see the number one and to say: That’s possible “Not. To crown this comeback with an Olympic victory was crazy.”
