Alberto Tomba
Vreni Schneider
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Vreni Schneider leads 3 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Alberto Tomba at #8 and Vreni Schneider at #10.
The case for Alberto Tomba
Tomba la Bomba took a sport followed by Alpine villages and made it a national event in Italy. He won 50 World Cup races — 35 slaloms and 15 giant slaloms — and three Olympic golds, taking both technical events at Calgary in 1988 and defending the giant slalom at Albertville in 1992, which made him the first alpine skier to win the same event at two Games. He medalled at three consecutive Olympics. His overall Crystal Globe came late, in 1995, and he closed with a slalom and giant slalom double at the 1996 world championships in Sierra Nevada. The numbers understate him: Tomba raced with a physical, aggressive line built on unusual leg strength, and he turned second runs into theatre, routinely coming from four or five places back. Italian television audiences for his slaloms reached levels the sport has never seen since.
The case for Vreni Schneider
The dominant technical racer of her generation and the owner of the most extraordinary single season in women's skiing before Shiffrin. In 1988-89 Schneider won 14 of the 16 races she entered, a win rate no woman has matched, and she finished her career with 55 World Cup victories and three overall Crystal Globes in 1989, 1994 and 1995. At Calgary in 1988 she won both slalom and giant slalom; at Lillehammer in 1994, six years and a serious knee injury later, she won the slalom again and added silver and bronze, taking her career Olympic haul to five medals from three Games. She was world champion in giant slalom in 1987 and won two golds at Vail in 1989. Her giant slalom technique — quiet, endlessly patient with pressure through the arc — was the model Swiss coaching taught for two decades afterwards.