Anna Veith (néeFenninger; born 18 June 1989) is an Austrian formeralpine ski racer andOlympic gold medalist. She was the overall World Cup champion for the2014 and2015 seasons.
Born inHallein, Veith is from the village ofAdnet inSalzburg and made her World Cup debut at age 17 in November 2006. She competed in all five alpine disciplines, but omittedslalom as of January 2012. Her major breakthrough came when she successfully becameworld champion in thesuper combined alpine event in2011,[1] without having won a World Cup race before. At the2014 Winter Olympics held inSochi, Veith won thesuper-G atRosa Khutor for her first Olympic medal, and at the end of the season she won the World Cup overall and giant slalom titles.
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In the 2006 Junior World Championships, Veith (née Fenninger) won the gold in the super-G, silver in thedownhill, and finished fifth in theslalom.
On 11 November2006, Veith made herWorld Cup debut in the slalom atLevi, Finland. She tallied her first World Cup points (top 30) on 21 January 2007 inCortina d'Ampezzo, where she finished 16th in the giant slalom.
After another top 20 placing, she improved again on 22 December 2007 inSt. Anton, where she received her best result of fourth in the super combined. At the 2008 Junior World Championships, Veith won gold in the giant slalom and silver in both combined and downhill.
In the2009 season she achieved six top 10 placings, with her greatest success being a second place in the super-G event inCortina d'Ampezzo on 26 January 2009. At theWorld Championships inVal-d'Isère Veith became 4th and 7th in the super-G and the super combined events, respectively. She won the bronze medal in the super-G event at the 2009 Junior World Championships inGarmisch-Partenkirchen.
In the next season, Veith had three top 10 finishes. At the2010 Winter Olympics she placed 16th in the super-G and the super combined events, and 25th in the downhill.
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The2011 season was a very successful season for Veith. She had twelve World Cup top ten finishes, which included two podiums, and finished 12th in the overall standings. She was 6th in the season's downhill standings, and 7th in the super-G. At the2011 World Championships inGarmisch-Partenkirchen, Veith won gold in thesuper combined and silver in theteam event, together withRomed Baumann,Michaela Kirchgasser,Benjamin Raich,Marlies Schild andPhilipp Schörghofer. She completed the season by winning the gold medal in the super-G at the Austrian Championships in late March.
In late December2011, Veith won her first World Cup event inLienz, Austria, in thegiant slalom.[2] Her most consistent World Cup podium results have been in thesuper-G. After another giant slalom win in Austria in December 2012,[3] Veith's first super-G victory came in March2013 in Germany.[4]
At the2013 World Championships inSchladming, Austria, Veith won bronze in thegiant slalom.
In the alpine skiing World Cup overall ranking 2013 she finished third behindTina Maze andMaria Höfl-Riesch.
The2014 season was Veith's most successful season so far. At the2014 Winter Olympics inSochi, Russia, Veith won thesuper-G atRosa Khutor for her first Olympic medal, winning by over a half-second.[5][6] Three days later, she won a silver medal in thegiant slalom, just .02 seconds behind gold medalist and World Cup rival Tina Maze of Slovenia. The Giant slalom was held in the rain.[7]
In the next three races after the Olympics, Veith had a runner-up finish and two wins, which gave her 280 more points and temporary lead over Höfl-Riesch. in the World Cup overall standings. Höfl-Riesch. regained the lead after the slalom at Åre, but was injured in the downhill at the World Cup finals in Lenzerheide. The next day, Veith secured her first World Cup overall title with a runner-up finish in the super-G.[8] She won the season-ending giant slalom to clinch the crystal globe for that discipline as well. Veith was runner-up for the season in both speed events, downhill and super-G and finished with four World Cup victories and eleven podiums. Including the Olympics, she had five wins and thirteen podiums during the 2014 season.
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Veith had her most successful World Championships to date winning gold medals in the Super-G and GS and a silver in the downhill. Following the World Championships she continued her form in the World Cup. On 19 January she had trailedTina Maze by 361 points in the overall. On 13 March she briefly overtook Maze in the standings with a dominant win in the GS inÅre, to take her ninth straight World Cup podium and fifth victory of the season.[9] It was the first time she had led the overall since winning the first race of the season: the GS inSölden. Only five races remained. The overall and GS titles would go to the last run of the last race of the season: the GS in Meribel. Veith was then trailing Maze by 18 points in the overall and had an 86-point lead over teammateEva Maria Brem in the GS standings. Veith took a win, and with it the GS and overall titles.[10]
Three days before the opening race of the 2015–16 season (Giant slalom atSölden in October) Veith fell in a training run there. She suffered severe tears to both herACL andmeniscus, causing her to miss the entire season, as well as the majority of the next. Veith's first World Cup event after the injury was a giant slalom atSemmering on 27 December 2016, but she didn't qualify for the second leg. The next day, she was 25th in another GS at Semmering. Her best result on the World Cup was a third place in the Super-G on 29 January at Cortina, shortly before theWorld Championships. However, Veith wasn't able to duplicate her success (giant slalom (22nd) andsuper-G (DNF)), then withdrew from the remainder of the World Cup season, citing lingering injuries that needed to be dealt with in order for her to continue in her career.
In January 2016 she announced former tennis playerFlorian Krumrey as her new manager.[11]
Veith attempted to defend her 2014 Super-G gold medal, ultimately winning the silver medal inPyeongChang behind Czech skierEster Ledecká in a major upset.
On 12 January 2019 she suffered another cruciate ligament tear during training in Pozza di Fassa (Trentino), although she had not even fallen. She had to cancel the season and thereby also missed theWorld Championships.[12]
Veith announced her retirement from the sport on 13 May 2020.[13]
Veith supports the non-profit organisationCheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), whose mission is to be the world's resource charged with protecting the cheetahs and ultimately ensuring its future on our planet. Her racehelmet has a cheetah design, and as an ambassador of this organisation she was publishing several videos and photographs with herself in cheetah design,[14][15] with the aim of raising awareness that they are almost extinct.
From 2013 to 2015, Veith was also a partner of the Austrian non-profit organisation Build an Ark - engaged in wildlife conservation for many years - in order to create a long-term effect for the Cheetah project. The cooperation of a top-athlete and a wildlife conservation association, themed "top-class sports meets wildlife conservation" was intended to raise awareness of the cheetah's plight and of society's role in its long-term survival.[16]
She was born in Hallein, Austria, to parents Peter and Martina Fenninger, and later settled in Salzburg. On 16 April 2016, she married her longtime boyfriend, former snowboarder Manuel Veith.[17] In February 2021 Veith announced that the couple is expecting their first child together.
In early November 2016 she published her autobiography,Zwischenzeit ("meantime"). The book primarily covers her career through the years and her experience of being unable to compete due to a prolonged injury.[18]
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| Season | |
| Discipline | |
| 2014 | Overall |
| Giant slalom | |
| 2015 | Overall |
| Giant slalom | |
| CombinedA |
AUnofficial, combined was not awarded from seasons 2013 to 2015.
| Season | |||||||
| Age | Overall | Slalom | Giant Slalom | Super-G | Downhill | Combined | |
| 2007 | 17 | 108 | — | 40 | — | — | — |
| 2008 | 18 | 60 | — | 52 | 32 | — | 14 |
| 2009 | 19 | 20 | 39 | 52 | 15 | 21 | 7 |
| 2010 | 20 | 26 | — | — | 13 | 26 | 6 |
| 2011 | 21 | 12 | 59 | 33 | 7 | 6 | 9 |
| 2012 | 22 | 5 | 54 | 4 | 3 | 19 | 8 |
| 2013 | 23 | 3 | — | 2 | 3 | 8 | 13 |
| 2014 | 24 | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| 2015 | 25 | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 2016 | 26 | knee injury in October: out for season | |||||
| 2017 | 27 | 74 | — | 48 | 26 | 45 | — |
| 2018 | 28 | 15 | — | 33 | 3 | 12 | — |
| 2019 | 29 | 39 | — | 18 | 26 | 34 | — |
| Season | |||
| Date | Location | Discipline | |
| 2012 | 28 Dec 2011 |  Lienz, Austria | Giant slalom |
| 2013 | 28 Dec 2012 | Semmering, Austria | Giant slalom |
| 3 Mar 2013 |  Garmsich-Partenkirchen, Germany | Super-G | |
| 9 Mar 2013 | Ofterschwang, Germany | Giant slalom | |
| 2014 | 28 Dec 2013 | Lienz, Austria | Giant slalom |
| 6 Mar 2014 |  Åre, Sweden | Giant slalom | |
| 7 Mar 2014 | Giant slalom | ||
| 16 Mar 2014 |  Lenzerheide, Switzerland | Giant slalom | |
| 2015 | 25 Oct 2014 | Sölden, Austria | Giant slalom |
| 21 Feb 2015 |  Maribor, Slovenia | Giant slalom | |
| 1 Mar 2015 |  Bansko, Bulgaria | Super combined | |
| 2 Mar 2015 | Super-G | ||
| 13 Mar 2015 | Åre, Sweden | Giant slalom | |
| 22 Mar 2015 |  Méribel, France | Giant slalom | |
| 2018 | 17 Dec 2017 | Val d'Isere, France | Super-G |
| Year | ||||||
| Age | Slalom | Giant Slalom | Super-G | Downhill | Combined | |
| 2009 | 19 | 32 | — | 4 | DNF | 7 |
| 2011 | 21 | — | — | 5 | 17 | 1 |
| 2013 | 23 | — | 3 | DNF | 11 | DNF2 |
| 2015 | 25 | — | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 2017 | 27 | — | 22 | DNF | — | — |
| Year | ||||||
| Age | Slalom | Giant Slalom | Super-G | Downhill | Combined | |
| 2010 | 20 | — | — | 16 | 25 | 16 |
| 2014 | 24 | — | 2 | 1 | DNF | 8 |
| 2018 | 28 | — | 12 | 2 | — | — |
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(in German)| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Austrian Sportswoman of the year 2013 – 2015 | Succeeded by |
| Olympic Games | ||
| Preceded by | Flagbearer for Austria Pyeongchang 2018 | Succeeded by Incumbent |
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| People | |
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