Ingemar Stenmark
Vreni Schneider
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Vreni Schneider leads 2 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Ingemar Stenmark at #2 and Vreni Schneider at #10.
The case for Ingemar Stenmark
For 34 years the answer to the question of who had won most, and still the men's record-holder. The Swede took 86 World Cup victories — 46 in giant slalom, 40 in slalom — without ever seriously contesting a downhill, which meant he was surrendering an entire half of the points table and winning the overall title anyway, three years running from 1976 to 1978. In 1978-79 he won 13 races in a season. At Lake Placid in 1980 he won both technical golds, coming from well behind in the first run each time, and he added world titles in 1978 and a slalom-giant slalom double at Schladming in 1982. His style was the argument for economy: minimal upper-body movement, no visible effort, a line so precise that his runs look slow on film until the split times appear. He was also the last great champion of the straight ski, retiring in 1989 four years before the shaped ski arrived.
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.