Skiing: Final run as Sarah Schleper puts her family first

American skier Sarah Schleper produced her trademark roar at the start of a World Cup race for the last time, before leisurely skiing down the Hochstein course in Lienz, Austria, in a coffee-coloured minidress, picking up her three-year-old son Lasse midway through her run.

The 32-year-old Schleper, who competed in four Winter Olympics, announced that yesterday’s slalom was the last World Cup race of her career.

Schleper retired after 15 years and 186 races since making her World Cup debut in her native Vail, Colorado, in 1995. “I love travelling, but it has become just a little bit too much stress,” Schleper said half an hour after her final run, still wearing just the minidress, despite the freezing temperatures. “The pressure of every race was getting to me. I felt it was time to let it go.”

In her career, Schleper has won one race – a slalom in Lenzerheide, Switzerland in 2005 – and had three more podium finishes, all between 2000-05. She holds five national titles – four in slalom, the other in giant slalom. Her best results in major events were seventh in the Santa Caterina downhill at the 2005 world championships and tenth in the slalom at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

She skipped the 2007-08 season to give birth to her son. Now she’s looking forward to spending more time with Lasse and her husband Federico. “I want to make my family a little bit bigger and really focus on my kids and make sure they get the opportunities that I have had,” said Schleper, adding her farewell was emotional.

Marlies Schild won her fourth straight race in women’s World Cup slalom skiing yesterday, while 16-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States placed third to become the youngest female racer on a World Cup slalom podium in 33 years.

Schild, who now has a career tally of 31 wins in the discipline, had two flawless runs to finish in an aggregate one minute, 51.42 seconds and beat second-place Tina Maze of Slovenia by 0.79 seconds. Shiffrin started her eighth World Cup event as No 40, ended the opening run in 12th before posting the fastest time in the final run. She finished 1.30 behind Schild, who lost 0.24 to Shiffrin in the final run.

Shiffrin, who became the youngest American national slalom champion last spring, impressed with an all-attacking yet error-free second run, in which she made many turns extremely close to the gates.

In Bormio, Italy, Olympic champion Didier Defago won a gruelling World Cup downhill on the bumpy Stelvio course, showing that the Swiss racer has fully recovered from a knee injury that kept him out all of last season. Defago had a nearly flawless run and clocked two minutes, 1.81 seconds, with fellow Swiss Patrick Kueng 0.29 seconds behind and Klaus Kroell of Austria in third, 0.42 back.