The FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is the top international circuit of alpine skiing competitions, launched in 1966 by a group of ski racing friends and experts which included French journalist Serge Lang and the alpine ski team directors from France and the USA. It was soon backed by International Ski Federation president Marc Hodler during the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1966 at Portillo, Chile, and became an official FIS event in the spring of 1967 after the FIS Congress at Beirut, Lebanon.
Anja Sofia Tess Pärson is a Swedish former alpine skier. She is an Olympic gold medalist, seven-time gold medalist at the World Championships, and two-time overall Alpine Skiing World Cup champion. This included winning three gold medals in the 2007 World Championship in her native Sweden. She has won a total of 42 World Cup races.
Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding competitive discipline. It involves racing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in slalom but less than in Super-G.
Jan Ingemar Stenmark is a Swedish former World Cup alpine ski racer. He is regarded as one of the most prominent Swedish athletes ever, and as the greatest slalom and giant slalom specialist of all time. He competed for Tärna IK Fjällvinden.
Theodore Sharp Ligety is a retired American alpine ski racer, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an entrepreneur, having cofounded Shred Optics. Ligety won the combined event at the 2006 Olympics in Turin and the giant slalom race at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. He is also a five-time World Cup champion in giant slalom. Ligety won the gold medal in the giant slalom at the 2011 World Championships. He successfully defended his world title in giant slalom in 2013 in Schladming, Austria, where he also won an unexpected gold medal in the super-G and a third gold medal in the super combined.
Aksel Lund Svindal is a Norwegian former World Cup alpine ski racer. Born in Lørenskog in Akershus county, Svindal is a two-time overall World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist in super-G at the 2010 Winter Olympics and in downhill at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and a five-time World Champion in downhill, giant slalom, and super combined. With his victory in the downhill in 2013, Svindal became the first male alpine racer to win titles in four consecutive world championships.
Karl Schranz is a former champion alpine ski racer from Austria, one of the best of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Denise Karbon is a retired World Cup alpine ski racer from South Tyrol, Italy. She competed in the technical events and specialized in giant slalom.
Thomas Fanara is a former French World Cup alpine ski racer.
Christina Weirather is a retired Liechtensteiner World Cup alpine ski racer. She won a bronze medal in Super-G for Liechtenstein at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Marcel Hirscher is an Austrian-born Dutch World Cup alpine ski racer. Hirscher made his World Cup debut in March 2007. He competed primarily in slalom and giant slalom, as well as combined and occasionally in super G. Winner of a record eight consecutive World Cup titles, Hirscher has also won 11 medals at the Alpine Skiing World Championships, seven of them gold, a silver medal in slalom at the 2014 Winter Olympics, and two gold medals in the combined and giant slalom at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Due to his record number of overall titles and many years of extreme dominance of both slalom and giant slalom, he is considered by many, including his former rivals Henrik Kristoffersen, Kjetil Jansrud and Alexis Pinturault, to be the best alpine skier in history. He won a total of 67 World Cup races, ranking second on the male all-time list.
Will Brandenburg is a World Cup alpine ski racer on the U.S. Ski Team and specializes in slalom.
Alexis Pinturault is a French World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic medalist.
Mathieu Faivre is a French World Cup alpine ski racer, and specializes in giant slalom. He has competed for France in two Winter Olympics and six World Championships. In 2021, he won two gold medals for world titles in giant slalom and parallel giant slalom.
Rasmus Windingstad is a Norwegian World Cup alpine ski racer.
Manuel Feller is an Austrian World Cup alpine ski racer. Feller specializes in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom, and made his World Cup debut in November 2012. In 2024, Feller won his first World Cup discipline title in slalom.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle is an American World Cup alpine ski racer and a member of the Skiing Cochrans family. Cochran-Siegle competes mainly in the speed disciplines, despite initially being a giant slalom specialist. He also races in combined. He made his World Cup debut on November 26, 2011; his Olympic debut was in 2018, and he was the silver medalist in the Super-G in 2022.
The women's giant slalom World Cup 2021/2022 consisted of 9 events including the final. Overall World Cup leader Mikaela Shiffrin from the United States, who started out in the early lead in this discipline, contracted COVID-19 at the end of 2021 and missed the post-Christmas giant slalom, then Shiffrin lost the lead in this discipline to Sara Hector of Sweden in the first race in 2022.
The women's giant slalom in the 2023 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup included ten events, including the final. The season was scheduled to open in Sölden, Austria on 22 October 2022, but the race was cancelled due to bad weather and rescheduled to Semmering, Austria on 27 December.
The men's giant slalom in the 2023 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of ten events including the final. Defending discipline champion Marco Odermatt of Switzerland opened over a 100-point lead in the discipline by winning four of the first five races and finishing third in the other, although he then missed a race due to injury. Odermatt clinched the discipline championship by winning both giant slaloms on 11-12 March in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.
