Marcel Hirscher has crowned his career with the incredible feat of winning six consecutive overall FIS World Cup titles. The 27-year-old Austrian superstar secured his latest title in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia a full two weeks before the end of the season. Hirscher won the season's penultimate Giant Slalom competition by 0.46s from Leif Kristian Haugen of Norway and Matts Olsson of Sweden. He held a solid lead of almost a full second after the first run, and despite the challenging conditions of fog and rain, left no chance for his rivals on the second run. The conditions were not easy, but I still knew I had to ski as fast as I could, pushing always at the limit. It wasn’t easy and I’m very glad to be through with it. And I’m super happy with the giant slalom globe. It’s a huge relief Marcel Hirscher Before the weekend's races in Slovenia, Hirscher led the overall standings by a comfortable 404 points over the Norwegian speed racer Kjetil Jansrud and 432 points ahead of slalom specialist Henrik Kristoffersen. After Saturday's GS race, Hirscher now holds an unassailable lead of 505 points over Jansrud. With the victory, Hirscher also secured the crystal globe for winning the GS World Cup title, his seventh overall, followed by the slalom trophy the next day. At the age of 27, Hirscher has now established himself among the most successful ski racers of all time, and it's not the first time that the Austrian powerhouse has rewritten skiing history. He's already won the coveted World Cup crystal globe five times, just like Marc Girardelli, but only Hirscher has clinched his globes in consecutive seasons. Girardelli needed a total of nine years to record the same number of titles.
With his sixth overall World Cup win, Hirscher is now tied with the ladies' record holder Annemarie Moser-Pröll, another Austrian, who claimed five of her titles between 1971–75 but needed four more years to secure her sixth triumph, in 1979. At the recent 2017 World Champs in St Moritz, Switzerland Hirscher became the most successful racer, with three individual medals, including a double title win in the tech events (the first male to do so since Alberto Tomba 21 years ago) and a silver medal in the Alpine Combined. To digest his successes, Hirscher took a well-deserved rest. He skipped the speed races in Kvitfjell, Norway, to concentrate on Slovenia and ensure his sixth title was won in record time. |