Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event during the 1983 season and was added to the official schedule of the World Championships in 1987 and the Winter Olympics in 1988.
Hermann Maier is an Austrian former World Cup champion alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist. Nicknamed the "Herminator", Maier ranks among the greatest alpine ski racers in history, with four overall World Cup titles, two Olympic gold medals, and three World Championship titles. His 54 World Cup race victories – 24 super-G, 15 downhills, 14 giant slaloms, and 1 combined – rank third on the men's all-time list behind Ingemar Stenmark's 86 victories and Marcel Hirscher's 67 victories. Until 2023 he held the record for the most points in one season by a male alpine skier, with 2000 points from the 2000 season. From 2000–2013 he also held the title of most points in one season by any alpine skier, until Tina Maze scored 2414 points in the 2013 season.
Samuel Bode Miller is an American former World Cup alpine ski racer. He is an Olympic and World Championship gold medalist, a two-time overall World Cup champion in 2005 and 2008, and the most successful male American alpine ski racer of all time. He is also considered one of the greatest World Cup racers of all time with 33 race victories and being one of five men to win World Cup events in all five disciplines. He is the only skier with five or more victories in each discipline. In 2008, Miller and Lindsey Vonn won the overall World Cup titles for the first U.S. sweep in 25 years.
Tina Maze is a retired Slovenian World Cup alpine ski racer. She is the most successful Slovenian ski racer in history with a career that culminated with two gold medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Maze was awarded the title of the Slovenian Sportswoman of the Year in 2005, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and with her four medals she is the most decorated Slovenian athlete at the Winter Olympics.
Lasse Kjus is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Norway. He won the overall World Cup title twice, an Olympic gold medal, and several World Championships. His combined career total of 16 Olympic and World Championship medals ranks second all-time behind fellow Norwegian Kjetil André Aamodt.
Benjamin Raich is an Austrian former World Cup champion alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist. With 14 medals won at Winter Olympics and World Championships, 36 World Cup race victories, one first place and five second places in the World Cup overall ranking, three victories of the slalom World Cup, three victories of the combined World Cup, two victories of the giant slalom World Cup and the highest score of career World Cup points, he is considered among the best alpine racers in World Cup history.
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.
Franck Piccard is a French former Alpine skier. A native of Les Saisies, Piccard won a total of four Alpine Skiing World Cup races. At the 1988 Olympics in Calgary he won a gold medal in the Super-G competition and a bronze medal in the downhill. At the 1992 Olympics in Albertville he won a silver medal in the downhill. He also could achieve a bronze-medal in the Super-G-Race at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships 1991.
Carlo Janka is a Swiss former alpine ski racer. Born in Obersaxen, in the canton of Graubünden, he had the winter sports facilities right in front of his home. Janka has won gold medals at both the Winter Olympics and the World Championships, as well as one World Cup overall title, one discipline title and also, one unofficial alpine combined title.
Kjetil Jansrud is a Norwegian former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic champion. He competed in all alpine disciplines apart from slalom, and his best event was the giant slalom where he has six World Cup podiums and an Olympic silver medal. Since 2012, he had concentrated on the speed events, where all but two of his World Cup victories had come. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he won the super-G and placed third in the downhill. At the World Championships in 2019 at Åre, Jansrud won gold in the downhill. Kjetil is the current host of popular tv reality show Alt for Norge.
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.
Michelle Gisin is a Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer and competes in all disciplines. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, she won the Women's combined event in 2018 Winter Olympics, and Women's combined at the 2022 Winter Olympics. Born in Samedan, Graubünden, Gisin is the younger sister of alpine ski racers Marc and Dominique Gisin.
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 men's giant slalom in the 2022 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of eight events including the final. At the halfway point of the season, Marco Odermatt of Switzerland had opened a commanding lead in the discipline by winning four of the races and finishing second in the other. The remainder of the season was held in March, after the 2022 Winter Olympics, but in the first post-Olympic event, Odermatt clinched the crystal globe for the season championship.
The men's overall in the 2022 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of 37 events in 5 disciplines: downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and parallel. The sixth discipline, Alpine combined, had all of its events in the 2021–22 season cancelled due to the schedule disruption cased by the COVID-19 pandemic, which also happened in 2020–21. The schedules were also revamped as a consequence of the pandemic, thus ensuring that the combined number of speed races was the same as the combined number of technical races, with just one parallel race. The season did not have any cancellations.
The men's overall in the 2023 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of 38 events in four disciplines: downhill (DH), super-G (SG), giant slalom (GS), and slalom (SL). The fifth and sixth disciplines in FIS ski events, parallel (PAR). and Alpine combined (AC), had all events in the 2022–23 season cancelled, either due to the schedule disruption cased by the COVID-19 pandemic (AC) or due to bad weather (PAR). The original calendar contained 43 events, but in addition to the parallel, four downhills were cancelled over the course of the season.
The men's overall in the 2024 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consisted of 35 events in four disciplines: downhill (DH), super-G (SG), giant slalom (GS), and slalom (SL). The season was originally scheduled with 45 events, but the first three events of the season were cancelled due to high winds and heavy snowfall. The cancelled giant slalom was subsequently rescheduled for Aspen on 1 March, and one of the canceled races from Zermatt-Cervinia was rescheduled to Val Gardena/Gröden on 12 December. As discussed under "Season Summary" below, there were additional cancellations and reschedulings after the opening races.
The men's overall in the 2025 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup is scheduled to consist of 38 events in four disciplines: downhill (DH), super-G (SG), giant slalom (GS), and slalom (SL). After cancellations in both of the prior two seasons, the two downhills scheduled on the Matterhorn in mid-November were removed from the schedule. Thus, for the third straight season, only the four major disciplines will be contested on the World Cup circuit.
The men's downhill in the 2025 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup is scheduled to consist of nine events, including the finals. Two-time discipline champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway, who failed to win last season because he suffered life-threatening injuries on the Lauberhorn downhill course in January 2024, developed a shoulder infection at the surgical site over the summer and needed a second surgery, which is expected to cause him to miss the entire season, making defending discipline champion Marco Odermatt of Switzerland an overwhelming favorite to earn the season championship.
