Alpine Skiing FIS World Cup 2018 - 2019

[heywoodu 15,121]

I wonder how people are able to compare Svindal with Hirscher. It's like wondering who was the best runner, Bolt or Bekele..

[Federer91 2,788]

16 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

I wonder how people are able to compare Svindal with Hirscher. It's like wondering who was the best runner, Bolt or Bekele..

 

But there is no such thing, as an overall World Cup runner.  When there is such a generalization you have to compare, for good or bad. In a perfect world Svindal should have had 4-5 Big Globes, but his career was derailed by a dozen injuries, which prevented that. It doesn't matter that slalom and downhill are completely different stuff. In 15 years how many will remember this, they will just know 8 > 2 and who was the best. Because skiing in the last 4 years is "Hirscher World Cup" in every single race, all the time. Just like tennis is all Slam count, slam count, slam count.

[heywoodu 15,121]

Well, the rest shouldn't have been so bad then. 

[Gigs 68]

On 18/03/2019 at 16:52, Federer91 said:

 

But there is no such thing, as an overall World Cup runner.  When there is such a generalization you have to compare, for good or bad. In a perfect world Svindal should have had 4-5 Big Globes, but his career was derailed by a dozen injuries, which prevented that. It doesn't matter that slalom and downhill are completely different stuff. In 15 years how many will remember this, they will just know 8 > 2 and who was the best. Because skiing in the last 4 years is "Hirscher World Cup" in every single race, all the time. Just like tennis is all Slam count, slam count, slam count.

4 to 5 globes is a bit of a stretch though. I guess he would have won in 2008 without injuries in 2016 it would have been mightily close and who knows what would have happened in 2015, but then again you shouldn't forget he only won 2007 and 2009 because Raich choked twice. Sure he could have won 5 globes if everything had gone perfectly but I actually think two globes is an okay amount for how good he was. I think he is quite comparable to Raich and Miller and they only won 1/2 globes as well. Also most of those injuries svindal has had (with the exception of 2007) came when he was already older than Hirscher is now so I have a hard time using that as an explanation for why Hirscher has a few dozen more wins