Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen is a former biathlon world champion and winner of three overall IBU World Cups, who retired from competing in 2020. How did she make the difficult decision to retire, and how has she navigated her post-competitive career? In our latest podcast interview, we spoke to Kaisa to find out

She had already been thinking of retirement for five years before she finally took the decision in 2020, she tells us. As an athlete competing for a relatively small biathlon nation, before each of those seasons she had to make a judgement about whether the ever-changing team around her was strong enough to help her achieve her goals.

In her last season, Kaisa’s decision to retire was actually hastened by the onset of the Covid-19 epidemic, which resulted in the cancellation of the last event of the season, meaning that she was suddenly faced with the reality that her last race was to be on the following day, instead of a week later, as she had expected and planned for.

Covid also meant that her post-competitive career plans had to go on hold. However, she had the foresight to found her own promotional company before retirement, and since then she has gradually built up a successful career as a sports media pundit and coach.

Kaisa’s message to biathletes considering retirement is summed up by advice she herself received: go on for as long as you have the passion – and then for one season more, so that you will know the time is right and will have no regrets!

For the full interview, click here.