The Olympics put athletes from less mainstream sports into limelight for two weeks. Sports like luge, skeleton, and bobsled, or the likes of shooting or fencing in the Summer Games, hardly get lots of worldwide exposure apart from their Olympic events which are broadcast on major channels around the world. Even sports like athletics and swimming are more or less niche sports outside the major events, and the likes of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps wouldn't be such huge stars without their Olympic success, and to a lesser extent their World Championship success.
Ski sports are highly popular in Central and Northern Europe with lots of media coverage even outside the Olympics and the Worlds. But outside their heartlands, the ski sports become mainstream only once in four years during the Winter Olympics. And in the eyes of those once-in-four-years fans, even the greatest career can be seen as mediocre if the success at the Olympics has eluded.
Olympic and World Championship success is a great way to determine athletes' greatness in sports like athletics and swimming. Those are sports where athletes set their goals in succeeding at the major events. I don't really like putting Olympic success way over World Championship success because an unfortunate injury may ruin your Olympic season and four years is a long period until your next chance at the Olympics. You may get fewer chances at the Olympics, though it still takes the same effort to win at the Worlds. Though winning gold medals at two consecutive Olympics probably makes you a bigger legend than gold medals from three consecutive world championships, although both achievements take the same time.
Ski sports are different from athletics or swimming. Regardless of the venue, the running track is 400 meters and the Olympic pool is 50 meters. In ski sports, every venue is different, favoring different athletes. Some alpine skiers do better on steep slopes, others on flat ones. In cross-country skiing a tough course allows the athletes with better endurance to break away from the field while easier courses allow the best sprinters to stay in the leading group throughout the race to win it in the last kilometer. And every ski jumper has hills that suit them better and hills that don't suit them that well.
Besides, the ski sports have highly important season-long circuits, the World Cup tours. In a season-long circuit you will face venues that suit you better and venues that don't suit you so well. The World Cup rewards those who can do well at most venues and have the consistency to perform at their best throughout the winter. You can see one-hit wonders winning Olympic gold medals, though you can't see them winning World Cup titles.
I am one who puts the World Cup titles above everything else in ski sports. If you're good on certain types of hills or courses, you can win multiple gold medals in your career but winning World Cup titles requires a more complete set of skills and season-long consistency. Four-time Olympic silver medalist and the 2003 World gold medalist in slalom, Ivica Kostelić, has said the lack of an Olympic gold medal doesn't matter that much because he's won the biggest prize in the sport, the World Cup overall title. Olympic and World Championship medals are awarded in single disciplines; the overall World Cup title requires success in multiple disciplines in the same season. Kostelić skipping his preferred disciplines slalom and combined at the 2011 Worlds after the super-G bronze medal in order to concentrate on winning the World Cup overall title further highlights the importance of the big crystal globe.
For sure the Olympic and World Championship medals aren't meaningless alongside the World Cup titles. Firstly, especially the Olympics are the most-viewed competitions in the sport. I bet most Americans know Ted Ligety as a two-time Olympic gold medalist rather than as a five-time World Cup giant slalom champion.
Secondly, the major championships are a different challenge compared to the World Cup tour. If you're dominating your sport, you don't need to bring out your best at every race to win World Cup titles. At the Olympics or Worlds, you can't win with mediocrity. Lara Gut is leading the super-G standings in the World Cup, yet 0.12 seconds separated her from the Olympic gold medal, eventually finishing fourth and missing the bronze medal by 0.01 seconds.
Seeing athletes with a big disparity between their World Cup and major championship achievements probably tells something about them. Peter Fill has only three wins on the World Cup tour, though he's won two titles in downhill and one in alpine combined. He doesn't finish in the front very often, though his consistency has won him World Cup titles. Though that's not how you succeed in major championships; Fill's medal record of one silver and one bronze in the Worlds is quite mediocre for one with three small crystal globes.
On the other hand, Mario Matt never won a crystal globe in the World Cup and finished only twice in the top three in the slalom standings, though his two World gold medals and one Olympic gold medal in the span of 13 years plus 15 race wins in the World Cup surely put him above some of the World Cup champions whose heyday lasted only a few years and who never broke into double digits in their victory count.
The Olympics and the Worlds don't present the greatest challenges in the sport to athletes. When the venues need to accommodate men's and women's races in different disciplines, not all major championship slopes can be among the most challenging ones in the sport. The challenge to the athletes isn't even that high on the list of priorities when commercial interests play a big role when selecting the host venue. The Olympics may have the most important single races for the athletes but the Jeongseon downhill course doesn't reflect that, being among the easiest in top-level ski racing.
I am one of those who put winning the Hahnenkamm downhill at least on the level of an Olympic or World gold medal if not even above. That race is the biggest challenge in alpine skiing. A major gold medal doesn't prove you as a skier the way winning on the Streif does. A flawless and fast run on an easy course can win you a gold medal but you may be struggling with the challenges the most challenging courses present. And Hahnenkamm matters to skiers; that's where every downhill skier wants to win.
Didier Cuche won four World Cup titles in downhill plus one in super-G and one in giant slalom between 2007 and 2011. Still his medal record isn't that exceptional; one gold, two silver, and one bronze medal in the Worlds and an Olympic silver medal dating back to 1998. However his four wins on the Streif between 2008 and 2012 show why he was the best downhill skier of that era. You could beat him on easier courses, like Wengen where he never won, though he dominated the most challenging courses.
It's difficult, or rather impossible, to put achievements in any absolute order. I'm one who puts World Cup titles above gold medals, though you need to look at the bigger picture. Sports are about winning; achieving World Cup titles purely with consistency and never succeeding big time at major championships isn't that impressive while a great medal record can make up the lack of crystal globes. Elisabeth Görgl never won a World Cup title, though has a solid medal record from 2009 to 2011 and her double gold medal at the 2011 Worlds shows that success wasn't a fluke. That puts her above some of the weaker World Cup champions in my eyes.
I truly admire Marc Girardelli's career. Five overall titles in the World Cup, two discipline titles in downhill, one in giant slalom, three in slalom, three times the runner-up in super-G, and four times topping the combined standings. That's accompanied by 11 World Championship medals from all five disciplines, including three gold medals in combined and one in slalom plus he's one of the rare skiers to win the downhills in Kitzbühel and Wengen the same season, winning actually two downhill races in Wengen in 1989. But he never won the gold medal at the Olympics, achieving only the silver medals in super-G and giant slalom in 1992. However, the lack of Olympic gold doesn't affect to my impression of his career. The sport is about more than two weeks every four years.
It's the same in other ski sports too. Janne Ahonen is a two-time World Cup overall champion in ski jumping and the five Four Hills titles stand out the most from his resume. In addition to that his medal record features two individual World gold medals, though he's never won at the Olympics or even achieved an individual medal. Still, his achievements show he can deliver under pressure. If anything, the Four Hills titles have required the same abilities than any major gold medal but also consistency. One single bad day can ruin your Four Hills campaign, at the Olympics or Worlds there's still another competition. However needing to have consistency for one week prevents the kind of flukish wins you can see at the Olympics or Worlds. Yes, even Thomas Diethart wasn't a fluke but the best ski jumper in the world for one week.
There's been criticism over Kaisa Mäkäräinen's performance in biathlon in PyeongChang where she failed once again to win an Olympic medal. Some of the criticism is justified. The best result of a 10th place isn't really what you'd expect from the World Cup leader. But never winning an Olympic medal isn't really such a big failure in the big picture of her career. She's won two World Cup overall titles, five discipline titles, a World gold medal, and a total of six medals at the Worlds. If I had to point out a failure from her resume, it's winning only one major gold medal despite all her World Cup success. An Olympic gold medal would have fixed that, a silver or bronze medal wouldn't have. But who am I to blame one of the top biathletes of this decade?
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