Marco Odermatt clinches historic 5th consecutive Alpine skiing World Cup overall title
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Swiss Marco Odermatt mathematically clinched a fifth consecutive World Cup overall title, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, with six races still left this season.
Odermatt leads the overall standings by 632 points over Brazil's Lucas Pinheiro Braathen. The maximum amount of points a skier can claim per race is 100 for a win, so nobody can catch Odermatt the rest of the season.
Odermatt, 28, is the fifth Alpine skier to win five overall titles after Austrians Marcel Hirscher (eight) and Annemarie Moser-Pröll (six), American Mikaela Shiffrin (who can clinch her sixth later this month) and Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg (five).
All of Odermatt's overall titles were won in dominant fashion with margins of at least 400 points.
This season, he has won nine races and made 14 podiums. The next-best men won three times (Atle Lie McGrath of Norway) and had seven podiums (Pinheiro Braathen, McGrath and Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway).
At the Milan Cortina Olympics, Odermatt won two silver medals and a bronze, four years after taking giant slalom gold.
His focus in recent seasons: filling a rare gap on his resume: winning the most prestigious annual ski race — the Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbühel, Austria, in January. This year, he finished runner-up at the Hahnenkamm for a third time.
