Winner of the 2023-2024 Biathlon World Cup, Lisa Vittozzi was unable to defend her chances during the first events of the 2024-2025 season. This is due to back problems that she has not been able to get rid of since the fall of 2024, and which have led her to constantly postpone her resumption date. Finally, the Italian decided: there will be no return this year.
“We decided not to force things for my return to competition so as not to add risks and not to compromise the next few months of training”she explained in a press release published on Wednesday January 8 by the Italian Winter Sports Federation.
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The risks she talks about are those of missing the deadline of a lifetime, that of the Winter Olympics which will take place in her country next year. “We are refocusing on the races of the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan Cortina, which represent the real objective of this four-year cycle”she continues.
A first large crystal globe in 2024
Since the start of the season, Lisa Vittozzi had postponed her return to competition several times. She first skipped the first stage of the World Cup in Kontiolahti (Finland). The Italian then gave up, in December, the second and third stages, in Hochfilzen, in Austria, and in Grand-Bornand, in France, setting her return to Oberhof, in Germany (from January 9 to 12). Last week, she announced she was once again pushing back her World Cup return, this time without setting a date.
Aged 29, Lisa Vittozzi won last winter for the first time in her career the large crystal globe rewarding the best biathlete on the circuit. She was also very prominent during the 2024 World Championships in Nove Mesto (Czech Republic) where she won the title of individual world champion and three other medals, all in silver (pursuit, mass start and single mixed relay). .
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