[Hot Tabasco]

The best male alpine skier of all time was Pirmin Zurbriggen -- hands down.

I would disagree......on his 10 years on the tour he only won 4 overall titles with the slalom never being one of his victories.

Marc Girardelli on the other hand won 5 overall titles, which included Slalom, Giant Slalom and the Downhill..........

As far as tour victories, Girardelli won 3 Downhill, 9 Super G's, 7 Giant Slaloms, 16 Slaloms and 11 combined victories.

[Alberta's Child]

Girardelli would be up there above Stenmark in my mind. I'd probably put him up there among the top three with Zurbriggen and Hermann Maier.

I think Zurbriggen really only competed in 9 seasons, not 10. His bio lists 1982-1990 as his career in World Cup skiing; it looks like he started competing late in the 1981 season. He and Girardelli were the same age but Girardelli competed a few years longer. During the seven peak years when their careers overlapped, Zurbriggen won all four of his World Cup overall titles and finished #2 to Girardelli the other three years.

I was surprised to see that Girardelli never won an Olympic gold medal, either -- considering he had the advantage of competing in three Winter Olympics in six years (with the two-year lag between the 1992 and 1994 Games).