Swiss Marco Odermatt is the third Alpine skier to win four consecutive World Cup overall titles, clinching his latest crown with five races still to go this season.
Odermatt, 27, moved 635 points ahead of his closest pursuer, Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen, after placing second to countryman Loïc Meillard in Saturday’s giant slalom in Hafjell, Norway.
Each race winner receives 100 points on a descending scale, so Kristoffersen cannot mathematically make up the deficit even if he wins the last five races through the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“To push yourself over and over and over again in a long season is very tough, so I’m happy that this very successful Norway trip for me is over and now just a cool final week in Sun Valley,” Odermatt said.
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Odermatt joins Austrians Annemarie Moser-Pröll (1971-75) and Marcel Hirscher (2012-19) as the only Alpine skiers to win four consecutive overall titles, the biggest annual prize in the sport given to the top skier combining results across all events (downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom).
For the second consecutive year, Odermatt is ranked No. 1 in the downhill, super-G and giant slalom (he doesn’t race slaloms). He leads all men with eight race victories this season after winning a record-tying 13 times each of the previous two seasons.
Last season, Odermatt captured the overall title by 874 points, the largest men’s margin in history. Two seasons ago, Odermatt accumulated 2,042 points, also a men’s record.
Odermatt has navigated bumps this season. After winning 12 consecutive World Cup GS races in 2023 and 2024, he failed to finish the first two GS races this season.
He rebounded to win the next three, then placed fourth in his trademark event at February’s World Championships. He clinched a fourth consecutive World Cup giant slalom season title on Saturday.
Younger Swiss Franjo von Allmen has emerged as a threat in the downhill. Von Allmen won the World Championships title, though Odermatt has a nearly insurmountable 83-point lead in the World Cup downhill season standings going into the World Cup Finals.
A young Odermatt kept individual statistics by hand of his Alpine skiing idols while watching World Cup races on TV. He had posters in his bedroom of greats Didier Cuche and Ted Ligety, according to Blick.
He broke out at the 2018 World Junior Championships, becoming the first skier to win four individual races at a single edition of the event.
The following year, he became the youngest man to win a World Cup speed race in 30 years.
He won the 2022 Olympic giant slalom, plus GS and downhill world titles in 2023 and a super-G world title last month. He has appeared in at least two commercials with Roger Federer, his predecessor as Switzerland’s alpha male athlete.
He could go into the 2026 Milan Cortina Games with a chance to become the first man to win three individual Alpine medals at one Olympics since American Bode Miller and Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal in 2010.
