Skiing has been popular all over the glove for decades and some of the best skiers in the world have become well known for their skills on the mountain. They might not be as in the public eye as other celebrities, but famous professional skiers are still out there.
I’ve been a passionate skier ever since I was a child. I love everything about the sport, and there have been several famous skiers who have inspired me over the years. I follow the sport closely and know most of the common names.
In this post, I’ll highlight some famous professional skiers. I’ll list out their names alongside other information, such as what skiing style they are known for and their professional accomplishments.
Let’s dive into it.
Contents
Lindsey Vonn
Lindsey Vonn is probably the most famous female professional skier out there. She has inspired countless girls to put skis on and start ski racing, myself included. Vonn is one of the most accomplished female ski racers of all time and is an amazing skier in general.
Vonn had an impressive professional career and recently stepped out of the ski racing spotlight. She won four World Cup championships as part of the US ski team, putting her second on the all-time list.
A gold medal is also in her trophy case, and Vonn won this for her downhill performance at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Also impressive is her record of eight World Cup season titles in downhill throughout her career.
Lindsey Vonn is a fantastic skier but also earned recognition as a fashion icon and celebrity during her career. She’s one of my favorite skiers and did a lot to pave the way for the future of female skiers everywhere.
Eileen Gu
Eileen Gu is one of the most famous professional skiers today, and her career is just getting started. She was a sensation during the most recent 2022 Winter Olympics and represented the host country of China.
Gu is a phenomenal freestyle skier and competes in the halfpipe, big air, and slopestyle events. She became the youngest Olympic gold medalist in freestyle skiing when she won the big air event at 18 years old in Beijing.
It will be amazing to watch Gu grow and evolve as a skier because she is still so young. She is going to be the face of the sport for years to come and lead the charge into the new era of female freestyle skiers.
Bode Miller
Bode Miller is one of the most famous professional male ski racers. He’s known for being one of the best ski racers of his era while also having a rebellious spirit that earned him a reputation for being wild and getting into a bit of trouble over the years.
Miller won six ski medals in the Winter Olympics throughout his career, which is a record that still stands. He won medals in 4 different events, which has only been done by four other skiers ever. He also won the World Cup in 2005 and 2008.
Throughout his career, Miller often caught the attention of the press for being open about his feelings on skiing and other issues, and he wasn’t ever afraid to express his opinions even if they weren’t popular.
Ingemar Stenmark
Ingemar Stenmark is a Swedish ski racer who is generally regarded as the best slalom and giant slalom skier of all time. He has been retired since 1989, but his legend lives on because he has 86 wins in international ski races, which is super impressive.
Stenmark won three consecutive World Cup titles from 1976 to 1978, when he truly dominated the world of racing. He would cruise past his competition and became a sensation in the skiing world along the way.
Stenmark skied in an era before skiing got a lot of attention outside of the Olympics. There wasn’t the internet or a ton of press, and he was still able to get pretty famous. That speaks for itself about how good of a skier he was.
Mikaela Shiffrin
Mikaela Shiffrin is another of the top female skiers in the world who is still active. She has won two Olympic gold medals and three World Cup overall titles. All of her accomplishments make her one of the most successful American female skiers of all time.
Shiffrin got her professional start early and won her first gold medal at the age of 18 in the slalom event. After this, she became a skiing sensation and has been in the public eye since 2018.
She could very well become the most decorated ski racer of all time, as she has already won 73 World Cup races and is still in the prime of her career. Her list of accomplishments will undoubtedly continue to grow, and it will be exciting to watch.
Chemmy Alcott
Chemmy Alcott is probably the most famous female skier from the UK. She is well known for going to four winter Olympics and making the F.I.S World Championships seven different times. She doesn’t have as many medals or wins, but her record is still impressive.
Alcott had a strong run of competitions, but her career was cut short by severe injuries to her leg that required multiple surgeries to address. This forced her to retire earlier than she and the rest of the skiing world would have liked in 2014.
Luckily, Alcott also gained popularity by participating in the TV show Dancing on Ice which kept her in the public eye even when she wasn’t skiing. She remains active in the British ski scene and is a legend in that country.
Shane McConkey
Shane McConkey was a well-known skier who helped extreme skiing burst into the public eye during the early 2000s. McConkey was known for attempting super challenging lines and manuevers that most skiers would never consider.
McConkey wasn’t a ski racer, so he didn’t participate in the Olympics or other organized events. But if you were a skiing fan in the 2000s, he would always be on the cover or in the pages of the most popular skiing magazines.
McConkey was also a fan of other extreme sports, and he was a frequent BASE jumper. He unfortunately passed away during a ski-BASE jumping attempt in Italy in 2009. This accident was a tragic loss for the entire ski industry.
Tanner Hall
Tanner Hall is a famous freestyle skier who helped define this style of the sport throughout the 2000s. He is known for pulling off extremely challenging tricks in the X-games and in many different ski movies over the years.
Hall helped bring back a coolness to skiing that had slipped away when snowboarding seemed to gain more popularity throughout the 1990s. He had a snowboarder image but was a fantastic skier, which helped inspire hordes of young people to start skiing.
Hall hasn’t competed for some time now, but his reputation is still strong in many skiing circles. His list of appearances in ski movies is pretty legendary, and he has spots in dozens of films.
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic is a Croatian ski racer with one of the most impressive Olympic resumes of any female skier. She is the only female skier to ever win four gold medals in alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics.
She won three gold medals during the 2002 Olympics alone, which no other female skier has accomplished before or since. She also won all five ski competition disciplines in 2006, which only one other female skier has ever done.
Kostelic retired from competitive skiing in 2007, but she still stays pretty active in the sport. She also has stepped into the political scene in her home country of Croatia and remains a popular public figure there.
Vreni Schneider
Vreni Schneider is a famous ski racer from Switzerland and one of the best female skiers of all time. She took part in her first world cup and the age of 20 and ended up winning the overall World Cup three times during her career.
Schneider is a national hero in her home country of Switzerland but isn’t as well known in other countries. She skied during the 1980s and 1990s when there wasn’t as much attention on the sport, and it wasn’t as popular worldwide.
Still, Schneider definitely earns recognition on a list of famous professional skiers because she is probably in the top three of the most successful female skiers of all time.
Seth Morrison
Seth Morrison became one of the most famous skiers in the 1990s. He was well known for pushing big mountain skiing limits and living up to an infamous lifestyle of skiing and partying hard that defined that era of skiing.
Morrison wasn’t a ski racer but dominated ski films and magazines because of his extreme skiing abilities and general controlled recklessness. He inspired a generation of skiers to go live like ski bums and chase powder.
Morrison also helped create progress in ski design, and much of the twin-tipped and rockered skis we all ski on today owe tribute to his skiing style. He might not be as well-known today, but he deserves a lot of credit for helping build up the industry into a powerhouse.
Sarah Burke
Sarah Burke is a legendary female skier in the world of freestyle skiing. She was one of the first female skiers to really push boundaries in female freestyle skiing and paved the way for a younger generation of skiers that came after her.
Burke was one of the first female skiers to go big in the terrain park. She could hang with the guys when this was not a common thing to see. She often skied better than many of the male skiers around her.
If it weren’t for Sarah Burke, women’s freestyle skiing would not have become a Winter X-games event. She pushed for the Superpipe and Slopestyle events to become officially sanctioned for female skiers.
Burke passed away after a horrible crash in Utah while training in the halfpipe. This was an extremely tragic event, but her legend lives on with the successes of women’s freestyle skiing across the world.
Final Thoughts
Fame is a funny thing in the skiing world. Some skiers get a lot of attention for winning cold medals and World Cups, while others achieve fame through going huge in the backcountry or dropping fresh lines in the best ski films.
There have been plenty of skiing legends over the years, and the people mentioned on this list represent only a fraction of the skiers who have helped shape the sport for all of us who love to get on the mountain today.
