Competitors attempt to achieve the best time in four disciplines: slalom, giant slalom, super G, and downhill. The fifth event, the combined, employs the downhill and slalom. The World Cup originally included only slalom, giant slalom, and downhill races. Combined events (calculated using results from selected downhill and slalom races) were included starting with the 1974–75 season, while the Super G was added for the 1982–83 season.
The current scoring system was implemented in the 1991–92 season. For every race points are awarded to the top 30 finishers: 100 points to the winner, 80 for second, 60 for third, winding down to 1 point for 30th place. The racer with the most points at the end of the season in mid-March wins the cup, represented by a 9 kilogram crystal globe.[2] Sub-prizes are also awarded in each individual race discipline, with a smaller 3.5 kg crystal globe.
Since 1967, the big crystal globe has been awarded for the overall title. From the beginning to 1971–72, discipline titles were awarded with medals. Statistically, those titles have the same value as the small crystal globes, which first appeared for discipline titles in slalom, giant slalom and downhill in the 1977–78. In super-G, the small globe has been awarded since 1985–86. For super-g races in the three seasons previous, points were added and calculated in the giant slalom ranking.
The World Cup is held annually, and is considered the premier competition for alpine ski racing after the quadrennial Winter Olympics. Many consider the World Cup to be a more valuable title than the Olympics or the biennial World Championships, since it requires a competitor to ski at an extremely high level in several disciplines throughout the season, and not just in one race.[3]
Races are hosted primarily at ski resorts in the Alps in Europe, with regular stops in Scandinavia, North America, and east Asia, but a few races have also been held in the Southern Hemisphere. World Cup competitions have been hosted in 25 countries around the world: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.[4]
Combined crystal globes were officially awarded from 2007 to 2012. Here are counted all season titles, official and unofficial. The records for most World Cup titles in each discipline are as follows:
Only four men's racers have ever managed to win small crystal globe in four or more different alpine skiing disciplines during their career, as listed in the table below.
A common measurement of how good individual skiers are is the total number of World Cup races won during their skiing career. The following skiers have won at least 20 World Cup races:
Only a few racers have ever managed to win races in all five classic World Cup alpine skiing disciplines during their career, as listed in the table below. Marc Girardelli (1988–89), Petra Kronberger (1990–91), Janica Kostelić (2005–06) and Tina Maze (2012–13) are the only skiers to have won all five events in a single season. Bode Miller is the only skier with at least five World Cup victories in all five disciplines.
Mikaela Shiffrin is the only skier in history who has won in six different disciplines—i.e., aside from the classic five disciplines, she has also won in parallel slalom.
Note: Only parallel events from (1975, 1997, 2011–2013, 2016) which count for overall ranking, included on this list, are considered as official individual World Cup victories.
Based on ski-database super ranking system (since 1966), this scoring system is calculated using points from three categories: Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Cup (overall titles, discipline titles and individual top ten results).