Matthias Mayer

Austria’s Matthias Mayer is a world-beating alpine skier who has won two Olympic gold medals. He specialises in the downhill and super-G forms of alpine skiing, both of which form part of the annual Skiing World Cup and bi-annual World Championships. Over successive World Cups, he has skied his way to the top of the sport, amassing nearly 30 podium finishes, including nine wins. He finished the 2020 season with a fourth-place overall finish; his best placing yet.

Mayer was born in 1991 in Carinthia, an Alpine region in southern Austria. Skiing is evidently in his blood, his father, Helmut Mayer, is also an Olympic medal-winning skier. However, the junior Mayer has achieved more than enough success to be regarded as a great in his own right. Aged 16, he won a silver medal for super-G at the World Junior Championships. Aged 21, his career truly began to take off when he won his first World Cup bronze medal, in-super G. The following year, he competed at his first Winter Olympics in Russia, causing a sensation when he took gold in the downhill race. At the next Winter Olympics in South Korea, he won a second gold, this time for super-G.

Clearly an athlete of strength, diversity, and dedication, Mayer has become a regular presence at the Skiing World Cup. He has achieved four top-ten overall finishes and, during the 2020 season, added his first medal for combined skiing to his ever-growing collection. With plenty left to ski for, the world will be seeing Mayer on podiums for many years to come.