A number of snowboarders have announced their retirements including former Olympic Champions and World Cup winners.

Race boarder Nicolien Sauerbreij (NED) called it quits at the Sudelfeld World Cup before the end of the 2014/15 season. Since the 2010 Olympic Champion and 2011 World Championship silver medallist had to finance her World Cup career on her own, the first-ever Dutch winter sport athlete to bring home an Olympic medal from a snow event decided to step back from racing and concentrate on her new career working for Randstad. Sauerbreij had a long career with 236 World Cup starts, one World Cup title win and 22 podium finishes of which eight were victories.

https://www.facebook.com/NicolienSauerbreij/posts/10153025807920432

Besides Sauerbreij, two Austrian riders on the Snowboard World Cup circuit ended their careers. Andreas Lausegger said good-bye after the Rogla (FIN) World Cup and his teammate Anton Unterkofler stepped back from active racing with a fourth place finish at the season finals in Winterberg (GER) which was his best career parallel slalom result. For his last World Cup race, he chose special clothes:

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The 2014 Olympian who has 94 World Cup starts under his belt (one win and two top-3 results) will complete his masseur education whilst taking over some duties in his brother’s hotel in St. Johann.

Meanwhile, German snowboard crosser Maximilian Stark who had tried to comeback over the past years, ended his career. The 23-year-old from Unterhaching suffered a serious leg injury in a crash at the 2012 World Cup opening in Montafon (AUT) and had many set-backs ever since.

Source: fis-ski.com