Record-breaking Odermatt and Norwegians Kilde and Braathen shine in exceptional men’s ski season

The 2023 Audi FIS Ski World Cup men’s season was exceptional by any metric.

Packed with thrilling races, dramatic finishes and dominant performances, three athletes stood out most of all: Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt, who broke the men’s points record for a single World Cup season, Norwegian downhill monster Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, and his teammate Lucas Braathen, who overcame surgery to win the slalom crystal globe in spectacular style.

Odi fever

It is Odermatt who must take headline billing.

The 25-year-old has always been full of promise: he’s long looked powerful and fearless enough to mix it with the toughest downhill practitioners but also possessing enough technical ability to win on turny giant slalom runs.

The 2021/22 season was his breakthrough: he won seven races overall, doing enough to take the overall and giant slalom crystal globes.

But while many would have anticipated a repeat of these excellent exploits in 2022/23 – especially after Odermatt had won giant slalom gold at Beijing 2022 – few could have predicted the extent to which his rare combination of skills would bear fruit.

His stats are frankly ridiculous: Odermatt made it on to 22 podiums, winning 13 times. It was enough to accrue 2,042 points in total, placing him above the legendary Hermann Maier of Austria, who gathered 2,000 points in the 1999/2000 season.

The feat has made Odi one of Switzerland’s biggest stars. Besting the Austrians in anything ski-related is always welcome, but Odermatt has done it all while maintaining a humble, thoughtful and friendly outlook, too. It has made him extremely popular even among those racers he is beating week in, week out.

How has he done it? Versatility has been key. Odermatt is at his most comfortable on a fast, icy, straight giant slalom course, so rival coaches would try to make runs that are as slow and twisty as possible to try to catch him out. But it didn’t work: Odi’s technique has held up perfectly throughout.

On super-G courses, meanwhile, his strength and technical prowess have enabled Odermatt to master difficult turns on key runs where others couldn’t.

Crucially, he has improved radically in the downhill, too. While he didn’t win a single World Cup in the discipline, he was always a contender. Perhaps the highlight of a season packed with them – from doubles in Kranjska Gora (giant slalom) and Cortina (super-G), to holding his nerve at the World Cup Finals – was the World Championships in Courchevel, where he won the blue riband event ahead of a brilliant field.

Mentally bulletproof and somehow fighting off the season-long fatigue, this was an athlete at his peak, enjoying a proper purple patch of form. Everything came together to produce a season for the ages. It will be something even he will struggle to repeat.

Kilde continues downhill mastery

While Aleksander Aamodt Kilde lost numerous key battles to his great friend and rival Odermatt across the season – especially in key super-Gs, and that World Championship downhill – the Norwegian powerhouse remained the No.1-ranked man in skiing’s fastest discipline.

His achievements should not be overshadowed by records elsewhere (and indeed in his own house, where his partner Mikaela Shiffrin hasn’t been doing too badly). Having tuned 30 in September, Kilde produced the best season of his career: 13 podiums and eight World Cup wins, surpassing his record of nine podiums and seven wins from the term before.

Kilde is improving with age, evolving into a heady mixture of raw speed, gutsy instinct and precise calculations of how to take risks and ski at the very limit in every race.

When it paid off, it was spectacular. Kilde came out the traps fast, blasting to victory in Lake Louise and Beaver Creek, before dazzling to win classic downhills in Wengen and Kitzbuehel.

He retained the downhill globe that he treasures so much, and put up a good fight for the super-G, too. Crucially, the ambition is still there. Kilde stated at the end of the term that “I have some work to do, to beat him [Odermatt] next year. He seems unbeatable now, but I don’t think so.”

It’s the kind of talk fans love to hear as they anticipate next year’s battles. There is much more of this classic contest to come.

Braathen puts name on the map

The breakthrough name of the year was Braathen: a Norwegian skier with a Brazilian mum and brimming with verve and style on the slalom slopes.

The 22-year-old racer first made his mark in October 2020, winning the GS in Soelden, and added a Wengen slalom title last season.

But in 2022/23, the six-foot (1.83m) ace known as ‘Pinheiro’ (pine tree) found the consistency to win the globe. Strong, fearless and always skiing on the edge, he has been a breath of fresh air on the World Cup circuit.

At the start of the winter, he looked likely to win every time he lined up. Dashing performances at Val d’Isere (winning the slalom), Alta Badia (winning the GS ahead of teammate Henrik Kristoffersen and Odermatt) and Adelboden (another great slalom win) put him on track to stay in contention for the overall globe.

But the need to remove his appendix, and recover from the surgery before restarting a sport needing lots of core strength, slowed his charge.

Perhaps most impressive of all was the way he bounced back from the operation. Braathen was as springy as ever, skiing at full gas as soon as he got back on the circuit, and showed real character in the World Cup finals in Andorra, where he did enough to clinch second place and win the globe ahead of 9ersen.

With his best years ahead of him, it’s thrilling to think what this young Viking can still achieve.

Best of the rest…

Also well worthy of a salute this season?

James Crawford of Canada, who came out of nowhere to win the super-G World Championship in Courchevel.

Henrik Kristoffersen, who switched gear to decent effect, winning the slalom world title with a brilliant second run and only narrowly missing out in the fight for that globe.

Marco Schwarz (AUT), who has shown his own versatility, graduating from a slalom specialist to someone who competes across all four disciplines.

AJ Ginnis, for his Greek greatness at the World Championships – grabbing silver, his country’s first medal in any Winter Olympic sport.

And, of course, the big names that bowed out this winter: the mighty Beat Feuz (SUI) and Matthias Mayer (AUT) – without whom downhill races will never quite be the same – and Johan Clarey, who retired aged 42 with a highly respectable 12th place in the downhill at Soldeu.