Janica Kostelic
Kjetil Andre Aamodt
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Dead even across the measured categories. Our all-time ranking places Janica Kostelic at #9 and Kjetil Andre Aamodt at #11.
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The case for Janica Kostelic
The greatest championship racer in alpine history, from a country with no ski culture, no federation money and almost no mountains suitable for World Cup racing. Kostelic trained across Europe out of a family car with her father as coach, and at Salt Lake City in 2002 won giant slalom, combined and slalom golds plus super-G silver — four medals at one Games, the most any alpine skier has taken, and a haul no woman has matched. She defended the combined title at Turin in 2006 for a fourth Olympic gold, level with Kjetil Andre Aamodt at the top of the sport's all-time list. She won three overall Crystal Globes and 30 World Cup races, and a hat-trick of golds at the 2003 world championships in St. Moritz. She retired at 25 after nine knee operations and a thyroid condition, having won everything available on a body that had effectively been rebuilt twice.
The case for Kjetil Andre Aamodt
The most decorated Olympian alpine skiing has produced, with eight medals across five Games from Albertville in 1992 to Turin in 2006 — a spread of championship longevity nobody else on this list approaches. Four of them were gold, level with Janica Kostelic at the top of the sport's all-time count, and three came in the same event: he won Olympic super-G in 1992, 2002 and 2006, at 20 and again at 34. He added combined gold at Salt Lake City and five world championship titles. His World Cup record is comparatively modest at 21 wins and a single overall Crystal Globe in 1994, and that gap is the case against him — but it also reflects a racer who contested all five disciplines seriously in an era of increasing specialisation, and who peaked, deliberately and repeatedly, in the weeks that mattered most.