Claudia Pechstein ended her skill speed career at the age of 53. The Berliner explained the resignation of competitive sports eleven days after the conciliatory conclusion of her million dispute with the ice skating World Association (ISU) in her hometown.
“It is enough now. I always said that when everything is over, I stop. So I can now hang up the ice skates and stop, ”said the five -time Olympic champion and six -time world champion at a press conference. In the future, she wants to continue as a trainer and consultant. “So I’m still on the ice, but no longer as a athlete.”
:Court process around Claudia Pechstein ended
After 16 years, Claudia Pechstein’s compensation process has ended against the ISU ice skating world association. The five-time ice skating Olympic champion apparently accepts an out-of-court settlement.
Last Monday, Pechstein and her partner Matthias Große and a day later also announced the ISU that the legal dispute over 8.4 million euros was ended after more than 16 years. Both parties had agreed out of court on February 27th. “I longed after the moment the case was over,” said Pechstein.
Both sides kept silent about the details of the “amicable agreement” according to ISU. “The ISU recognizes Ms. Pechstein’s sporting achievements and welcomes its future contribution to the development of athletes and ice skate running,” said the World Association. The way was clear for Pechstein’s resignation.
The agreement was reached after an oral hearing at the Munich Higher Regional Court on October 24th. Pechstein had sued ISU because of a two-year doping lock, which was wrongly imposed in 2009. Pechstein had always denied doping and repeated this in court.
Surprisingly, Pechstein and her father had undergone a new blood test
With the agreement, she has achieved the most important goal of her years of struggle without judgment: rehabilitation, eliminating the doping macelet, restoring her good reputation. “Basically, I’ve never been as close to the complete rehabilitation as it is today,” said Pechstein after the negotiation.
It was surprising that Pechstein and her father underwent a new blood test in a Swiss hospital in the run -up to the agreement. The result provided that it suffers from a “mild form of dehydrated hereditary stomatocytosis (DHSt)”. It is an inherited blood tanomaly in which the number of reticulocytes – the young red blood cells – is increased.
Pechstein had already brought this into the field in the course of her process marathon through sports and civil courts. The ISU had blocked the speed of ice in 2009 due to the increased number of reticulocytes and justified this with the “application of the forbidden method of blood doping”.
In 1991 Claudia Pechstein played her first World Cup race. It was the start of a great career. In 1995 she celebrated her first of a total of 34 wins in the series, her last in 2017. Despite the involuntary lack of 2010 in Vancouver, she was the only woman to start with eight Winter Olympics since 1992, won nine medals, five of which are gold. There are also six World Cup titles and six world records.
At her last Olympic Games in Beijing in Beijing, she took ninth place in the mass start shortly before her 50th birthday. “I think I showed that I am still efficient at my age. Few believed that. I am very, very proud of myself, ”she said at the time.
But it was also clear in China that Pechstein could no longer run for podiums internationally. In 2023 she won her 43rd German championship title. At the start of the winter season that was coming to an end, she had also dispensed with a start in national title fights because of the trial against ISU and then no longer contested a World Cup race for the first time since 2011.
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