Sports are always there, to help motivate us, inspire us, and keep us on our toes, or in the case of skiing, on our skis, trying hard not to fall while carving the snow. Professional skiers are, like all professional athletes, on a level of their own, often impossible to be compared to regular athletes or recreational skiers.
With that in mind, here are the best skiers of our time, the ones who were and are exceptional.
Bode Miller
Bode Miller goes down as one of the winningest skiers in the history of professional skiing, especially if we look at the United States only. As an Olympic medalist and two time World Cup winner, Miller is a great skier. He retired from professional racing in 2017. His career includes 33 World Cup victories, but more notably, he won the World Cup in all five disciplines, which is a feat only four other men have achieved.
Ingemar Stenmark
Stenmark is a great athlete, and was a great professional skier. He retired in 1989, with a huge list of 86 international victories. He is considered a slalom and giant slalom specialist, but his list of victories says otherwise. He is known for his fighting spirit and battling for every race. He is also an Olympic medalist and has competed in various skiing tournaments, international and local. Alongside Bjorn Borg, he was considered a superstar in Sweden in the 1980s.
Kjetil Andre Aamodt
It would be strange to have a list of skiers and not include a Norwegian. This specific Norwegian was the youngest and oldest male to win a gold medal at the Olympics. If you ask the fans, that is all you need to know about Aamodt. However, among his many notable victories, there was a fun loss to Tommy Moe at the Olympic Downhill in Lillehammer in Norway, 1994, where Aamodt lost by 0.04 seconds. His remark on the situation was that he should have probably shaved prior to the race.
Lindsey Vonn
Lindsey Vonn is one of the most popular female skiers of our times, especially recently.
Even though Vonn retired too early, in 2019, due to injuries, her career up to that point was more than amazing. Vonn has 20 Crystal globe World Cup titles, and she is the only person to have more than Ingemar Stenmark, who has 19, both male and female. She is an Olympic medalist and has had many victories. Some consider her to be the most successful female skier of all time.
Janica Kostelic
Coming from Croatia, Kostelic was the second female to win in all five disciplines in the World Cup, doing so in 2006. She is the third female to win three gold medals at the same Olympics, doing so in 2002. She retired in 2007, after missing the season due to chronic knee and back pain. She retired at the age of 25, after at least 10 knee surgeries during her career.
These are some of the best and most successful skiers of our time. The list goes on, and everyone has favourites, but these are the best ones, for now.
