Skip to content

⛷️Jean-Claude Killy

Ranked #12 of 12 · Ski Racing

#12GOAT Rankings
FranceCountry
1961-1968Career

Why they rank here

The shortest great career on this list and one of the most concentrated. Killy won the first two World Cup overall titles in 1967 and 1968, taking 12 of 16 races in the inaugural season — a proportion of a calendar no racer has since approached — and then swept downhill, giant slalom and slalom at the Grenoble Olympics in 1968, matching Toni Sailer as the only men to win all three at one Games. He finished with 18 World Cup victories in a circuit that barely existed yet, plus the world combined titles of 1966 and 1968. He retired at 24 and became the sport's first modern commercial star, later co-presiding over the 1992 Albertville Games and sitting on the IOC. His ranking here reflects an obvious limitation of era rather than of talent: there simply was no long circuit for him to dominate.

Career profile

World Cup wins
18
Overall World Cup titles
2
World Championship golds
2
Olympic golds
3
Olympic medals
3

Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.

Others in this ranking

Full ranking →