Pirmin Zurbriggen was born on February 4, 1963, in Saas Almagell in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.
Zurbriggen is one of the most successful ski racers ever. He won the overall Alpine Ski World Cup title four times (1984, 1987, 1988, and 1990), 8 discipline titles, 40 World Cup races in all five alpine disciplines (Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G, Downhill, and Combined), and recorded 83 podiums. He also won an Olympic gold medal in Calgary 1988 in Downhill, and nine Alpine World Ski Championship medals (4 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze).
Zurbriggen made her World Cup debut on January 4, 1981, in Ebnat-Kappel, Switzerland, a month before her 18th birthday, finishing fifth in the combined event.
With his victory in the Downhill at Kitzbühel on January 11, 1985, at age 21, he became the first skier to win World Cup races in all five disciplines. Great rival Marc Girardelli, was the second to enter this exclusive circle, winning his first Downhill race four years later at the Streif.
In 1985, in Bormio, Italy, he won his first two gold medals at the Alpine World Ski Championships in the Downhill and the Combined event. He also added a silver medal in Giant Slalom.
At the 1987 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships held in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, he won four medals, a gold in the Super-G and Giant Slalom, and two silver in the Downhill and the Combined.
Two years later, at the 1989 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships held in Vail, Colorado, he added a silver medal in the Super-G and a bronze in the Giant Slalom to his collection.
Pirmin Zurbriggen retired from international competition in 1990 after winning his fourth Alpine Skiing World Cup title, which at the time was the most titles won by a single racer, a feat achieved only once before by Gustav Thöni in 1975. Once again it was Marc Girardelli who followed in the Swiss’s footsteps in 1991 with a fourth overall title. In 1993 Girardelli added another to become the first male racer to win five overall titles in Alpine Ski World Cup history.
The rivalry between Marc Girardelli and Pirmin Zurbriggen altered the course of Alpine skiing and saw the pair dominate the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in the 1980s.
Before the arrival of Austrian sensation Marcel Hirscher, who became the only skier to win eight consecutive Big Crystal Globes between 2012 and 2019, the Men’s Alpine Ski World Cup lived through several eras dominated by Gustavo Thoeni, Ingmar Stenmark, and Phil Mahre who stamped their authority on the ski tour for several seasons in a row -three for Stenmark and Mahre, four for Thoeni with a one-year pause between 1973 and 1975.
Between 1984 and 1991 Marc Girardelli and Pirmin Zurbriggen, both born in 1963, dominated the Ski World Cup tour and shared everything there was to win, including nine overall World Cups and 14 discipline titles (eight to six in favor of Zurbriggen).
Zurbriggen left the World Cup tour as a hero to start a family; he was married in the summer of 1989 to Monika Julen, the sister of his best friend on the Swiss ski team and Olympic Champion, Max Julen, with whom he has five children: Elia, Pirmin Jr., Maria, Alain and Leonie, who have all competed in ski racing. He is the older brother of Heidi Zurbriggen, a winner of 3 Alpine Ski World Cup Downhill races, and a distant cousin of Silvan Zurbriggen.
Also, Pirmin's father, Alois, competed as a ski racer in local competitions in the 1940s and 1950s but quit ski racing after his brother was killed in a training accident.
Pirmin Zurbriggen Statistics
Olympic Winter Games Starts: 7
Olympic Winter Games Medals: 2
Olympic Winter Games Victories: 1
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Starts: 11
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Podiums: 9
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships Victories: 4
FIS World Cup Starts: 210
FIS World Cup Podiums: 83
FIS World Cup Victories: 40
Comments