athletics
High jumper Salome Lang retires at the end of the season
Despite her comeback this spring, the Swiss record holder is ending her career for health reasons following serious injuries in recent years.
Salome Lang at the Swiss Athletics Championships in June 2024 in Winterthur.
The most successful Swiss high jumper, Salome Lang, is ending her career in professional sport at the end of the current season. The Basel native announced this on Instagram early Monday evening. After several herniated discs and a torn ligament in her foot in the last three years, the 26-year-old has to slow down earlier than planned.
After getting through winter training without injury, Lang was able to compete again this season, but her body was no longer as strong as it had been before the numerous injuries and she was also unable to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris: “I had reached a point where I had to realise that my goal of attacking the 2-metre mark would entail the risk of long-term damage. I do not want to take that risk. For me personally, being a professional athlete is the best job in the world. But I still have a few years to live with my back and the risk of injuring it to the point where it affects my future is not worth a medal, a record or a competition,” Lang wrote in her statement.
The Swiss record holder
With Salome Lang, Swiss athletics has lost the holder of the Swiss high jump record. In her most successful season in 2021, she jumped 1.96 meters at the European Team Championships in Cluj and improved Sieglinde Cadusch’s Swiss record, which had stood for 26 years, by one centimeter, thus qualifying for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Just a week later, Lang improved her own record by another centimeter to 1.97 meters at the Swiss Championships. Only four high jumpers in the world jumped higher this year.
But then the upward trend came to an abrupt halt. This was followed by a two-year break from competition with two back operations and then further setbacks after her comeback in spring 2023. Nevertheless, the decision to stop completely was not an easy one for her, as Lang writes: “It will take time for me to come to terms with this decision. But I am deeply grateful that I was able to live my dream and my passion for such a long time.”
Before Salome Lang’s extremely successful career – despite her difficult history – comes to an end in mid-September, there are two final highlights. On Thursday, September 5, Lang will appear on the big Diamond League stage for the last time at Weltklasse Zürich, and just over a week later her favorite competition of the year is on the program: Lang will be chasing points for LG Basel Regio at the Swiss Club Championships in Winterthur.
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