Rosie Brennan, a three-time Olympian in cross-country skiing, has announced her retirement from World Cup competition at age 37 due to ongoing health issues. She expressed disappointment in not being able to end her career on a high note but remains hopeful for future skiing endeavors.
Key points
Rosie Brennan announced her retirement from World Cup skiing.
She is a three-time Olympian in cross-country skiing.
Brennan faced significant health challenges affecting her performance.
She consulted with numerous doctors about her health issues.
Brennan hopes to continue skiing in some capacity despite her retirement.
Rosie Brennan
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Rosie Brennan, a three-time Olympian during the most successful era for U.S. women's cross-country skiing, announced the end of her career on the sport's highest level at age 37.
"I struggle with the word retirement because I hope to ski and race as long as I possibly can, but my time as a World Cup athlete has come to an end," Brennan wrote. "I continue to battle my health with few answers, and that has taken a toll both physically and mentally. I dreamed of finishing on a high and on my own terms, and I feel some amount of disappointment that this isnāt that. But something that skiing has given me is a deep appreciation for challenging myself and finding joy in the process of learning, and this year provided plenty of that."
Starting before Christmas 2024, Brennan began feeling symptoms of what became a year-plus health struggle.
She dealt with achy joints, soreness and random cramps and estimated she saw at least 10 to 12 doctors.
āImpossible to race as a cross-country skier if you canāt really push hard,ā she said last August. āSo itās been very strange. Possibly a post-viral thing. Iāve seen a million doctors. No oneās really had an answer.ā
In her third Olympics this past February, Brennan finished 15th and 37th in two individual races and was part of the U.S. women's fifth-place relay.
Brennan was at first persuaded to ski by her mom in eighth grade ā a year after she watched 2002 Olympic competition in her native Park City, Utah, while school was out three weeks.
As a Dartmouth sophomore, Brennan made her World Cup debut in January 2009. She came back from being cut from the national team to make her first Olympics in 2018.
She came back from being cut from the national team again to make her second Olympics in 2022.
In 2020, she earned her first individual World Cup victory at age 32. The next day, she won again.
Last August, she said she was most proud of making World Cup podiums in all four types of races that take different skill sets: sprinting in both the classic technique and freestyle as well as distance events (10km or 20km) in each technique.
āOne of the things that makes her so unique is that she has believed and kept working, and she has incredible grit,ā teammate Jessie Diggins said in 2024. āNot that other people arenāt gritty, or that they donāt believe and they donāt keep working, but I think one of the coolest things about Rosieās story is that she got her first World Cup wins in her early 30s. She put in the work for years and years and years to get there, and all the while was just quietly grinding away, doing the work, doing all these hard workouts. And then she had her moment, and she got to really blossom. And I think itās a really cool example of you donāt necessarily know when youāre going to reach your full potential, and you should never give up until you get there.ā
Brennan competed in 31 total Olympic or World Championships races (individual, relay and team sprint). She or her team finished in fourth place on three occasions, in fifth place on six occasions and in sixth place on three occasions.
āIām incredibly proud of everything Iāve done,ā Brennan said last August. āI donāt feel I need (a medal) to make my career feel complete."
Her 279 World Cup starts are second in U.S. women's cross-country skiing history behind Diggins, who retired at the end of this past season.
"As I reflect on my World Cup career, I am most proud of showing up every day, having developed perseverance through overcoming many obstacles and difficult periods, and using my desire to learn and grow to become competitive in every event," Brennan wrote.
She plans to enroll in a master's program for sports nutrition at Liverpool John Moores University in England this fall.
"I hope to give my body more time to heal and my mind new challenges to take on," she wrote. "I donāt know exactly how skiing will fit into my life moving forward, but I do know it will, and I do believe I will put on a race bib as soon as my body is ready."
