Pernilla Wiberg was born in Norrköping, Sweden, on October 15, 1970. She is one of the most successful alpine ski racers of the 1990s, having won two Olympic gold medals in Albertville 1992 and Lillehammer 1994, four World Championships gold medals in Saalbach 1991, Sierra Nevada 1996 (2), and Vail 1999.
Wiberg won one Alpine Ski World Cup overall title and 24 World Cup races in all five alpine disciplines (Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G, Downhill, and Combined).
She made her Alpine Ski World Cup debut in Vemdalen, Sweden, on 13 March 1990, in the Slalom, finishing 5th. Five days later, she finished 3rd in the Giant Slalom in Åre.
In 1991, in Saalbach, in his first participation in the Alpine Ski World Championships, she won a gold medal in the Giant Slalom. Her Alpine World Championship gold was the first for a Scandinavian woman in 33 years.
The FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Spain at Sierra Nevada near Granada were to be held in 1995 but were postponed to 1996 due to a lack of snow. The Swedish won two gold medals in Slalom and the Combined.
1996–1997 was her best season ever. In February 1997 Sestriere, she added a new World Championship medal, a bronze in the Downhill.
She won ten World Cup races and took the Overall, Slalom, and Combined titles. She dethroned the previous year's World Cup Overall winner Katja Seizinger by over 500 points. In the Slalom discipline, she was incredibly dominant, winning 5 races, finishing second twice, and once each third and fourth, in that season's 9 World Cup slalom races. She won her first-ever World Cup Downhill in the Alpine Ski World Cup Finals in Vail, making her one of the first women ever to win World Cup races in all 5 disciplines.
At the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1999 held in Vail and Beaver Creek, Colorado, Pernilla Wiberg won two more medals, a gold in the Combined event and a silver in the Slalom.
After competing in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, she announced her retirement a few weeks later following knee surgery. Wiberg was elected a member of the International Olympic Committee in 2002 and served an eight-year mandate until 2010.
Pernilla Wiberg Statistics
Olympic Winter Games Starts: 12
Olympic Winter Games Medals: 3
Olympic Winter Games Victories: 2
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Starts: 18
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Podiums: 6
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Victories: 4
FIS World Cup Starts: 235
FIS World Cup Podiums: 61
FIS World Cup Victories: 24
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