Super-G world champion Stephanie Venier announced her retirement on Thursday, six months before the Milano-Cortina Olympics, with the Austrian saying she was no longer prepared to risk her health and wanted to go out at the top.

The 31-year-old Austrian won the first gold medal of her senior Alpine skiing career on home snow last February at the Saalbach world championships.

Venier took part in the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, failing to finish the downhill, and missed the 2022 Beijing Games.

"The thought of ending my career isn’t new - it’s been growing inside me for a while," she said in a statement.

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