Marco Odermatt
Janica Kostelic
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Janica Kostelic leads 3 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Marco Odermatt at #7 and Janica Kostelic at #9.
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 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.