Not too long ago, Maren Lundby seemed a lock for a gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics. Lundby, 27, a ski jumper from Norway, had won gold at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea; three straight World Cup titles, from 2018 to 2020; and gold medals in the 2019 and 2021 World Championships.
So it came as a shock when Lundby announced in October that she would take the entire season off, skip the Olympics and forgo the chance to defend her crown.
Her reasoning was simple, yet somehow it felt subversive: Lundby said she had gained weight between seasons and was unwilling to go to extreme lengths to shed it.