Reigning Olympic GS champion Marco Odermatt embraces pressure of being from ski-crazed Switzerland

BORMIO, Italy — Marco Odermatt hears the comparison all the time, that he is the Roger Federer of ski racing.

It’s flattering to be linked with the tennis great and dominate as his fellow Swiss countryman once did. It’s pressure, too, as the expectations for Odermatt are immense heading into the Milan Cortina Games, where he will be a favorite in the giant slalom – he’s the defending champion – downhill and super-G.

The 28-year-old doesn’t mind the added weight of competing for a ski-crazed nation. Or the spotlight. Or the demands. Or even the loss of privacy (well, maybe a little bit on that one).

“It all kind of feels normal,” Odermatt recently said in an interview. “I’ve grown up with this (pressure) during the last couple of years. It’s not something that comes overnight, so you learn to deal with it and it doesn't feel like pressure.”

Odermatt’s the ski racer everyone studies because his form is so solid, his line through a course always so fast and his turns so crisp. He's won four straight overall World Cup titles — cruising toward a fifth — and holds the season-long globe titles in the giant slalom, super-G and downhill.

“Winning,” he said, “is still fun, so that’s my biggest motivation to try and stay on top.”

He’s the most dominant men's ski racer since Austria’s Marcel Hirscher, who won eight straight overall World Cup titles. Hirscher did things on skis that left his rivals in awe.

Odermatt has a different sort of wizardry. His talent comes from his timing, which two-time Olympic champion Ted Ligety described as Odermatt's “superpower.”

“Timing sounds so simple in ski racing, but it is so hard to do at varying speeds, to know exactly when to start your turn into a whole bunch of varying tempos," Ligety explained. "To do that as consistently as he does is pretty amazing to watch.”

Ligety used to go head-to-head against Hirscher. Now he just observes Odermatt's mastery.

“We’ve seen more magical skiing out there before,” Ligety said, “but we’ve never seen such magical timing before.”

Becoming a champion

From Buochs, a small town in central Switzerland, Odermatt was on the slopes at an early age. His father was a skier while his mother was there “for everything else besides skiing,” he explained on an episode of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation's podcast. “This gave me exactly the good balance. Skiing was important but they always told me there were more important things in life.”

His idol was Swiss great Didier Cuche, a 21-time World Cup winner and an Olympic silver medalist in the super-G at the 1998 Nagano Games. As a kid, Odermatt won a race where the prize was to meet and spend a day skiing with Cuche.

Winning simply became a familiar theme. Like at the 2018 junior world championships in Switzerland, when Odermatt captured four individual gold medals.

He’s become the gold standard on the circuit, with 53 World Cup victories and three world championship crowns. Odermatt won the Olympic giant slalom at the 2022 Beijing Games when he held off Zan Kranjec of Slovenia by 0.19 seconds.

“Generational talent,” American ski racer Bryce Bennett said. “Just totally dialed in. He’s consistent, too. It’s amazing.”

That goes ditto for many on the World Cup tour:

— “He’s always bringing intensity, he’s pushing limits and showing that the athleticism is very important in this sport,” said Norwegian skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who recently withdrew from the Olympics as he works his way back from injuries. “You can say much about his skiing but what you can see is that he’s on point with his timing, he’s willing to ski fast, he’s motivated and he’s pushing. That’s why he keeps winning.”

— “It’s pretty much the same like Marcel,” said Austrian skier Vincent Kriechmayr, who's in second place behind Odermatt in the World Cup super-G standings. “They, of course, are the best skiers but they’re even stronger in the head. That’s the most important part.”

— “On my best day, I can compete with anybody,” explained American racer River Radamus, who finished fourth in the GS four years ago in Beijing. “But a guy like Marco Odermatt, on his bad days, he's still competing with everybody.”

Bormio success

Odermatt’s quite familiar with the Olympic track in Bormio, winning a World Cup super-G twice at the venue and finishing runner-up a pair of times in the downhill.

“Marco combines technical precision, physical conditioning and an exceptional ability to read in-run conditions — that mix creates his consistency,” said Markus Waldner, the men’s World Cup race director. “Having a dominant athlete is healthy for the sport: it creates a reference point opponents aim at, builds narratives and draws new audiences.”

Just like Federer, who won 20 Grand Slam singles titles.

Odermatt has taken up tennis, and hopes to one day play an official match with Federer. Odermatt also enjoys golf, escaping into the wilderness for a hike, biking and, of course, going fast on skis.

“I just like skiing,” he said with a laugh, “and I always try to give my best.”