While Marco Odermatt can earn a fourth consecutive World Cup overall title this season, and add to his world championships medal collection, the Swiss said the biggest missing prize is a single race victory: the Hahnenkamm downhill, in Kitzbühel, Austria.
Odermatt was asked at a preseason press conference his “big goal” after already achieving so much in his career by age 26, according to the Swiss Ski Federation.
“The downhill in Kitzbühel is my big goal, I’m still missing that,” Odermatt said in German, according to a Google translation of a 20 Minuten report. “It’s definitely on my list. I’ve already achieved all the other things. It’s my biggest goal.”
The Alpine skiing World Cup season begins in three weeks in Sölden, Austria. The Hahnenkamm downhill is Jan. 25.
Odermatt won 2022 Olympic giant slalom gold and 2023 World Championships downhill and GS gold, plus the last three World Cup overall season titles.
But he has yet to win the Hahnenkamm, the most famous annual ski race.
Odermatt finished second and third in a pair of Kitzbühel downhills last January, plus was second in 2022 and second in a super-G there in 2021.
Frenchman Cyprien Sarrazin won both Kitzbühel downhills last January after entering the season with a best World Cup downhill finish of sixth. Usually, there is one Kitzbühel downhill per season.
Five men in history have won Olympic gold, world championships gold, a World Cup overall title and the Hahnenkamm downhill: Austrian Stephan Eberharter, the last to complete his collection in 2002, plus Austrian Hermann Maier, Norwegian Lasse Kjus, Swiss Pirmin Zurbriggen and Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy.
Odermatt won 13 total World Cup races each of the last two seasons, tying the men’s single-season record.
In 2022-23, he broke the men’s record for World Cup points tallied in one season (2,042). In 2023-24, he broke the men’s record for margin of victory in the World Cup overall standings (874 points).
This season, he can become the third Alpine skier to win four consecutive overall season titles after Austrians Annemarie Moser-Pröll (1971-75) and Marcel Hirscher (2012-19).
