Annemarie Moser-Proll
Vreni Schneider
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Annemarie Moser-Proll leads 3 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Annemarie Moser-Proll at #5 and Vreni Schneider at #10.
The case for Annemarie Moser-Proll
The most complete dominance any woman exercised over the World Cup before Shiffrin. Moser-Proll won five consecutive overall Crystal Globes from 1971 to 1975, retired at 25, came back and won a sixth in 1979 — still the women's record — with 62 race victories in a period when the calendar was far shorter than it is today. Between December 1972 and January 1973 she won eleven consecutive downhills, a streak in a single discipline no racer has matched. She took five world championship golds and, at Lake Placid in 1980 in her final season, the Olympic downhill title that had eluded her through two silver medals at Sapporo in 1972. Contemporaries described a racer who simply attacked terrain other women managed, and her win rate across the seasons she contested remains the highest of any woman in the sport's history.
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.