Maya Pedersen-Bieri

Maya Pedersen
Full name	Maya Pedersen
nation	Switzerland
birthday	November 27, 1972
place of birth	Spiez ,  Switzerland
size	162 cm
Weight	52 kg
job	Teacher
Career
discipline	skeleton
society	Zurich bobsleigh club
Trainer	Snorre Pedersen
National squad	since 1995
status	resigned
End of career	2010
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 2 × 2 × 1 × EM medals 1 × 2 × 1 × National medals 10 × 3 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold 2006 Turin singles  Skeleton World Championships gold 2001 Calgary singles gold 2005 Calgary singles silver 2007 St. Moritz singles bronze 2007 St. Moritz team silver 2009 Lake Placid team  European Skeleton Championships silver 2005 Altenberg singles gold 2006 St. Moritz singles silver 2007 Königssee singles bronze 2009 St. Moritz singles Swiss championships silver 1995 Igls singles silver 1999 St. Moritz singles silver 2000 St. Moritz singles gold 2002 St. Moritz singles gold 2003 St. Moritz singles gold 2005 St. Moritz singles gold 2006 St. Moritz singles gold 2007 St. Moritz singles gold 2009 St. Moritz singles gold 2010 St. Moritz singles gold 2011 St. Moritz singles gold 2012 St. Moritz singles gold 2015 St. Moritz singles Norwegian championships gold 2003 Lillehammer singles
Placements in the WC / EC / NAC / IC
Debut in the World Cup 1996 World Cup victories 8th Overall World Cup 1. ( 97/98 )
last change: March 1, 2015

Maya Pedersen-Bieri (born November 27, 1972 in Spiez , Canton of Bern ) is a Swiss skeleton pilot .

Career

Maya Pedersen grew up in Hondrich (Spiez) and had her first encounter with the sport of skeleton in 1994 in Igls . In 1995 she joined the Swiss national team and competed in her first races.

In the 1996/97 World Cup season she was already among the best in the world and finished third in the overall standings behind Steffi Hanzlik and Michelle Kelly . In the 1997/98 World Cup she won two World Cup races for the first time in La Plagne and Winterberg and won the overall standings ahead of Steffi Hanzlik and Susan Speiran .

In the following years Pedersen was one of the best in the World Cup and finished the World Cup twice in second place ( 99/00 , 01/02 ), twice in third ( 98/99 , 00/01 ) and once in fourth place ( 02 / 03 ). In addition, she was at the 2001 World Championships in Calgary world champion in singles and finished at the 2002 Olympic Games of Salt Lake City in the victory of Tristan Gale fifth.

In the 2003/04 season she took a baby break and became the mother of a daughter.

After that she quickly found her strength back, finished second in the 2004/05 World Cup season and at the 2005 World Cup - again in Calgary - world champion for the second time. 2005/06 she won the overall World Cup after four wins this season again in second place, was at the 2006 European Championships in St. Moritz European champion and then at the 2006 Olympic Games on the track of Cesana Torinese Olympic champion before Shelley Rudman and Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards .

To World Cup 2006/07 concluded Pedersen finished fifth from before again lodged a maternity leave in the winter 2007/08 and brought her second daughter.

Even after the birth of her second child, Maya Pedersen still achieved numerous placings in the top ten, including a third place at the 2009 European Championships , and was able to qualify for her third Winter Olympic Games at the age of 37. After finishing ninth at the 2010 Olympic Games on the Whistler track , Pedersen ended her international career.

After the official end of her career, Maya Pedersen took part in three Swiss championships, in which she remained unbeaten from 2002 (in 2004 and 2008 she did not take part because of her pregnancies). In 2015 she became Swiss champion for the tenth time five years after her resignation.

Maya Pedersen lives with her husband Snorre Pedersen and their two daughters in Øyer near Lillehammer in Norway . After the end of her career, she declared that she wanted to return to her profession as a teacher and teach German and / or sports.

Web links

• Maya Pedersen-Bieri in the database of the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation
• Maya Pedersen-Bieri in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Official website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nice farewell for Maya Pedersen. Berner Zeitung, February 22, 2010, accessed on September 13, 2014 .