Laura Dahlmeier

Laura Dahlmeier - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Laura Dahlmeier

Laura Dahlmeier (22 August 1993 – 28 July 2025) was a German biathlete. Dahlmeier started in her first World Cup races in the 2012–13 season. In 2014, she participated in the Winter Olympics in Sochi. She won a record of five gold medals at the World Championships of 2017. In 2018, she became the first woman to win the biathlon sprint and pursuit in the same Olympics. During her career she won two golds and one bronze at the Olympics, seven gold medals, three silver medals and five bronze medals at World Championships, one overall World Cup and two discipline World Cup titles.

This profile of Laura Dahlmeier covers Early Life and Family Background, Career and Rise to Fame, Death and Legacy and Biathlon results.

Dahlmeier announced her retirement from competition in May 2019, at the age of 25. She died on 28 July 2025 in a mountaineering accident in northern Pakistan.

Early Life and Family Background of Laura Dahlmeier

Dahlmeier was born on 22 August 1993, in the Bavarian ski-town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen as the first child of Andreas and Susi Dahlmeier. She had a brother, five years younger, named Pirmin. She began skiing at a young age, took up biathlon by the age of 7, excelled as a teenaged biathlete at the age of 17 and won gold in all three races (10 km individual, 6 km sprint, and the mixed relay) at the 2011 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in Liberec. In this year she also passed her high school diploma at the St. Irmengard-Gymnasium with an average of 1.9 (good) and became a member of "Zoll-Ski-Team Germany", where she could combine a professional education with a biathlon career. Her father runs a furniture store and is also a passionate climber, skier and mountain-rescue volunteer. Her mother and her aunt were both professional downhill mountain bikers, winning titles. After their retirement, they opened shops, Lauras mother as a goldsmith, her aunt as a hairstylist.

Career and Rise to Fame of Laura Dahlmeier

At the 2013 Biathlon Junior World Championships in Obertilliach, Austria, Dahlmeier took three gold medals in the individual, sprint and relay, as well as a silver in the pursuit. Following this, she was selected for the German team in the women's relay at the 2013 Biathlon World Championships: racing in the third leg, she shot clean and overcame a 38-second deficit to hand over with Germany in the lead. Dahlmeier completed her first full World Cup campaign the following season: she enjoyed further success in World Cup relays, however she was unable to secure a solo podium finish, and did not make an impact at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Dahlmeier's start to her 2014–15 season was delayed due to a mountain accident at the Zugspitze, caused by a broken mountain flake, where she suffered a broken bone and a torn ligament. Because of that she made her World Cup season debut at Pokljuka in December 2014. Two months later she took her first World Cup win in Nové Město na Moravě, following which she took another six podiums, including a second win, and her first two senior World Championship medals, a silver in the pursuit and a gold in the women's relay.

In 2015–16, she took five World Cup wins, and at the World Championships in Oslo she took her first solo gold medal in the pursuit along with a silver in the mass start and bronzes in the sprint, individual and women's relay.

Dahlmeier enjoyed her best season in 2016–17, winning the overall World Cup and winning five golds and a silver at the World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, missing out on a sixth gold by four seconds in the sprint to Gabriela Koukalová. She became the first woman in biathlon history to win five gold medals at a World Championships.

The following season Dahlmeier's focus was on the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang: At the Games she became the second German woman to take the Olympic gold in the sprint, shooting clean as one of only three competitors to hit all targets in windy conditions, before doubling up with a second title in the pursuit and additionally taking a bronze in the individual. Dahlmeier received the Silver Laurel Leaf shortly after she won her first Olympic gold medal. She was the first female biathlete to win sprint and pursuit gold medals at the same Winter Olympics.

Dahlmeier's 2018–19 season was postponed by a mountain bike accident, where a cut wound had to be stitched, a tooth removal and a subsequent infection. But she took a World Cup race win at Antholz in January 2019 before going on to take two bronzes at the 2019 World Championships in Östersund in the sprint and the pursuit. In May 2019, after the end of the season, she announced her retirement from competition, stating that she no longer felt the 100% passion necessary for professional biathlon. She had her last biathlon competition after six months of retirement the 29th of December 2019 at the "Arena of Schalke" in Gelsenkirchen. She achieved a good result with only one shot of forty missing the target and a good lap time.

Career and Rise to Fame

On 18 October 2019, Dahlmeier released the children's book Die Klima Gang: Laura Dahlmeier und Freunde im Einsatz für die Natur, which she co-authored (The Climate Gang: Laura Dahlmeier and Friends in Action for Nature).

For the 2019–20 Biathlon World Cup season, she served as an expert commentator for the German broadcaster ZDF and as a winter sport brand ambassador for BMW. In 2019, she started studying sport science at the Technical University of Munich.

After retiring from competitive biathlon, Dahlmeier competed in mountain running. In June 2019 she won the 39-kilometer Basetrail XL race of the Zugspitz Ultratrail in Grainau, Germany. In September 2019 she won and set a new women's course record in the 52-kilometer Karwendelmarsch race from Scharnitz to Pertisau in Austria. In November of that year she placed 27th at the 2019 World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships in Argentina.

In April 2023 Dahlmeier passed the exam "state-certified ski and mountain guide". From then she leads occasionally groups through the mountains around Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The same year she released her second book, Wenn ich was mach, mach ich's gscheidt. From 2011 until her death, she was a volunteer for the Garmisch-Partenkirchen mountain rescue team.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Dahlmeier), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.