Marcel Hirscher
Janica Kostelic
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Marcel Hirscher leads 3 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Marcel Hirscher at #3 and Janica Kostelic at #9.
The case for Marcel Hirscher
The most dominant season-long racer in the history of the men's circuit. Hirscher won eight consecutive overall Crystal Globes from 2012 to 2019, a run no alpine skier of either sex has approached — Marc Girardelli's five had stood as the men's record since 1993 — and did it against the deepest technical fields the sport has staged, with Austria alone able to field a dozen plausible podium contenders. He finished with 67 World Cup wins, split between giant slalom and slalom, and seven world championship golds. The one gap was Olympic: after a silver in Sochi he finally won giant slalom and combined gold at Pyeongchang in 2018. He retired at 30 in perfect health, then returned in 2024 racing under the flag of the Netherlands, his mother's country, an unprecedented late-career switch that reopened a career everyone assumed was closed.
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.