Double Olympic Champion Laura Dahlmeier is forced to take a break from competitive sport for an indefinite period of time. The DSV announced on Monday that the immune system of the biathlete is too much weakened due to various health setbacks and the 25-year-old will recover first of all completely.
Whether Dahlmeier will be fit in time for the World Cup opening in Pokljuka at the beginning of December is therefore questionable.
“Viewed individually, the various difficulties were not particularly serious, and I was actually quite confident that I had coped well with the stressful Olympic season,” said Dahlmeier: “But whenever I thought that things were finally going up now, the next infection or another health problem came immediately. The last few weeks have not been easy for me.”
Dahlmeier, who won gold in sprint and pursuit at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, suffered a cut to her thigh in a cycling accident in July.
Shortly afterwards she had to step down because of a wisdom tooth operation, at last she put a protracted infection out of action. At the course in Hochfilzen/Austria she was therefore not able to complete all units as planned.
“The different health problems of the past months have led in summation to Laura’s immune system currently being quite weakened,” said DSV team physician Klaus-Jürgen Marquardt. For Dahlmeier, “high intensities, large amounts of training or stress in the current situation are therefore absolutely counterproductive”.