Biathlon star Magdalena Neuner confesses to having sacrificed her education for her sports career as a teenager.
German biathlon legend Magdalena Neuner has made a revealing confession. As the two-time Olympic champion revealed, she sacrificed her education for her sports career as a teenager and dropped out of school.
“At 16, you will decide to drop out of school, not because you are a bad student. Quite the opposite. But you know what you want. You will become a professional athlete,” Neuner wrote in a letter to her younger self for “Deutsche Sporthilfe.”
Magdalena Neuner dropped out of school at 16
Biathlon legend Neuner: Title-rich career ended at 25
The 38-year-old didn’t just become any professional athlete: twelve World Championship golds, two Olympic victories and three overall World Cup titles are to the biathlete’s credit. “At 19 you will be a world champion, and suddenly everything will turn faster than you can run. Your name will be in the media, people will follow you, interviews, photo shoots, sponsors – all at once. It will be exciting, it will be fun, but it will also exhaust you,” she wrote.
At the age of 25, Neuner decided to end her sporting career. “It will feel right because you are following your heart. One day you will look back and understand that all these experiences have made you the person you want to be. You will learn to develop, break new ground and be a role model for others – not just as an athlete, but as a human being.”
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