Marco Odermatt
Alberto Tomba
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Alberto Tomba leads 3 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Marco Odermatt at #7 and Alberto Tomba at #8.
The case for Marco Odermatt
The best all-round male racer since Maier and the man who broke his points record. Odermatt won four consecutive overall Crystal Globes from 2022 to 2025, and in 2022-23 scored 2,042 points, passing the 2,000 Maier set in 1999-2000, while winning globes in giant slalom, super-G and downhill in the same seasons — the rarest achievement in modern racing, since the technical and speed disciplines now demand almost separate training programmes. He won Olympic giant slalom gold at Beijing in 2022 and world titles in downhill and giant slalom at Courchevel-Meribel in 2023, adding a further giant slalom world title at Saalbach in 2025. As of the end of the 2024-25 season he had passed 40 World Cup victories while still in his twenties, and he carries the Swiss team's speed programme, the strongest in the sport, on his results.
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.