Snowboard crosser Markus Schairer has announced his retirement from active sport a little over seven months after his heavy fall at the South Korean Olympic Games. The man from Vorarlberg had suffered a cervical vertebra fracture in the serious accident last February in Bokwang, which fortunately did not result in any permanent damage.
Immediately after Schairer’s return from Pyeongchang, the broken fifth cervical vertebra was stabilized with a plate during an operation in the LKH Feldkirch. Schairer had started to train again afterwards. “The three-month healing process after the operation went very well. But with the increase of the training load I had to realize that the regeneration takes much more time than before the fall. Although I find it extremely difficult, I have to accept that the time has come to end my career,” Schairer said on Friday.
The man from Vorarlberg had been one of the absolute world elite in snowboard cross for over a decade. In 2008/09, the Montafoner won the SBX Overall World Cup and also raced to gold in Gangwon (KOR) during the same season. In January 2013 he won his second World Championship medal with silver in Stoneham, Canada. In the World Cup, Schairer will have four wins in the singles, one triumph in the team together with his Vorarlberg compatriot Alessandro Hämmerle as well as twelve other podium places (8 in the singles, 4 in the team).
The list of successes would probably have been much longer had the 31-year-old not been repeatedly slowed down by injuries. The three-time Olympic participant suffered several broken ribs in a crash at the X-Games in Aspen (USA) just before the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. Nevertheless, he started in Canada, but was severely handicapped due to the painful injury and had to settle for 23rd place.
Schairer was also unlucky at the home world championship 2015 at Kreischberg when he crashed in the qualification after third fastest time while braking at the finish and crashed spectacularly. Schairer suffered an ankle injury and had to give up a place in the final.
“Looking back on my career, I am very proud of what I have achieved. I won two World Cup medals and the World Cup. My most emotional victory was certainly the home win at Montafon in December 2013,” Schairer said in an ÖSV broadcast.
Schairer confessed that the current farewell was certainly painful. “It’s painful, of course, that Pyeongchang’s injury ripped me out of the snowboard cross circus so abruptly. On the other hand, I now have more time to look after my two wives at home, and I’m really looking forward to that,” added Schairer, who is the father of a one-year-old daughter.
“Markus Schairer has played a decisive role in shaping our snowboard team for over a decade. His word did not only have great weight in his own team, but in the World Cup in general,” said Christian Galler, the sports director for snowboarding at the ÖSV. “He has taken on an important role model function for our younger drivers. I wish Markus all the best for his future and would be happy if he could stay in a supervising or advising role for his home snowboard cross.”