Finnish Cross-Country Star Kerttu Niskanen Retires

Kerttu Niskanen is ending a 20-year professional cross-country skiing career after becoming Finland’s leading women’s skier in recent years. The 38-year-old announced that she is ready to make room for other parts of life.

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I have been allowed to compete in cross-country skiing professionally for an incredible 20 years. The journey has included an enormous number of victories, celebrations, experiences, development, challenges and defeats.

Niskanen won eight individual World Cup races and the distance World Cup in 2023. She collected five Olympic medals, but never won gold. Her closest chance came at the 2022 Beijing Games, where Therese Johaug beat her by four-tenths of a second for the title.

“I have been allowed to compete in cross-country skiing professionally for an incredible 20 years,” Niskanen wrote on Instagram. She described a journey filled with victories, celebrations, experiences, development, challenges and defeats, adding: “Now it is time to make room for other things.”

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Now it is time to make room for other things.

She also won two World Championship relay bronze medals, in 2015 and 2017. Niskanen thanked her family and those closest to her, saying elite sport demanded a great deal and that the support team had meant enormously to her. She is the sister of Iivo Niskanen, one of Finland’s best-known male cross-country skiers.

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A big thank you to my family and those closest to me, who have supported me throughout the journey. Elite sport demands a lot, and the support team means enormously much.