CALGARY — Three-time World Cup winner Manuel Osborne-Paradis of Canada announced his retirement Tuesday from competitive racing.
The 36-year-old from North Vancouver, British Columbia, is a four-time Olympian, winner of 11 World Cup medals and a world championship bronze in super-G. He was part of the Canadian Cowboy era on the Canadian men’s Alpine ski team, which produced seven world championship medals, including three gold, from 2009-17.
Osborne-Paradis said he decided to retire for a number of reasons, including a setback in his comeback from a catastrophic knee injury, the COVID-19 pandemic, and two young children at home.
The chance to win an Olympic medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing drove his comeback from a hellacious crash at Lake Louise in 2018. Osborne-Paradis shattered a tibia and fibula tumbling into the safety nets halfway down the first training run of the season.
“Maybe I’m lucky in that my tipping point happened alone at a track,” said Osborne-Paradis, whose best Olympic finish was a 13th in the downhill at the 2006 Games in Torino, Italy. “You’re thinking, ‘What am I really doing here?’ "
He was at peace with the decision.
“There’s just no way with lockdowns, quarantines and bubbles, to really get what I’m going to need to be as good as I want to be to go to the Olympics, to get a medal," he said. "The whole point is to have a chance at a medal at the Olympics. Give myself one more chance. If I can’t win, then I’m not going to waste people’s time.
“I always thought if I’m going to put a period at the end of this career, I want it to be mine. I don’t want somebody else to make that for me. I feel empowered I was able to see it first."
___
More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
The Associated Press
