Peter Fill (born 12 November 1982) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from northern Italy. Born in Brixen, South Tyrol, he formerly competed in all disciplines, and later focused on the speed events of downhill, super-G, and combined. Fill won the World Cup season title in downhill in 2016 and in 2017, and the combined title in 2018.
Career Fill is an all-round skier. In the 2007 season, Fill was among the overall leaders for the overall World Cup title, the first Italian since Alberto Tomba to rank in the overall top ten.
Fill learned to ski at the age of three with the help of his first teacher Frieda Senoner. He achieved his first successes during his middle-school years, while he was coached by Peter Thomaseth. In 1997/98, he joined the Seiser Alm training center, where he was coached by his uncle Arnold. In the same year, he joined the B-Pool of the Bolzano-Bozen ski team (coached by Sepp Steinwandter). One year later, he advanced to the A-Pool under Stephan Feichter. In 1999, he won every discipline at the National Junior Championships and returned home with four gold medals; he was called "the phenomenon" by the Italian press.
In 2000, Fill joined the national team for the first time. His coach was Ernst Pfeifhofer, who continued as his coach for the following year in the Italian B-Team. At the same time he became a member of the Carabinieri sportsgroup. As a junior in 2001, he achieved his first important success on an international level, a bronze medal in the super-G at the Junior World Championships.
In 2002/03 Fill was part of the A-Team of Flavio Roda for the first time. In February 2002, Fill won the World Juniors and, as a result, took part in his first super-G race of World Cup on 7 March 2002 at Altenmarkt in Austria, where he placed 12th outpacing the Norwegian Lasse Kjus by one hundredth of a second. While Fill's strengths are the downhill and super-G, he is also competitive in the technical disciplines. On 13 January 2006, he stood third on the Ski World Cup podium of the super combined race in Wengen (Switzerland).
During the 2006 and 2007 World Cup seasons, Fill had seven podiums: four in downhill, two in super-G, and a combined, but no wins. On March 21, 2007, he became Italian Champion in multiple disciplines (twice in super-G and once in giant slalom), bringing his career total of national championships to three.
During the 2008 season, Fill was unable to reach the podium but managed to place in the top-ten 10 on six occasions. On 29 November 2008 in Lake Louise (Canada), he won his first World Cup competition, beating Swiss Carlo Janka and Swede Hans Olsson, becoming the seventh Italian in World Cup history to win a downhill competition.
On 4 February 2009, Fill won the silver medal in super-G during the World Championships in Val-d'Isère (France) on the icy and steep slope Face del Bellevarde. He managed to place himself before the three-time World Champion Aksel Lund Svindal, but was not fast enough to beat the Swiss Didier Cuche. His medal was the only one won by the Azzurri in the men's competitions.
Fill won his second World Cup race in 2016, the downhill at Kitzbühel, on a difficult dark and windy day on the Streif that ended the season of overall leader Aksel Lund Svindal. Fill went on to become the first Italian to win the World Cup downhill title, finishing tenth at the last downhill of the season in St. Moritz in March 2016 to finish 26 points ahead of Svindal.
Personal Fill is a cousin of retired giant slalom racer and fellow Kastelruther Denise Karbon. After junior high school, he started working as an auto body mechanic while attending a vocational school, which he left after becoming more involved in alpine skiing competitions. His mother tongue is German but he is also fluent in Italian and English. His idol in everyday life is his uncle Norbert Rier, leader of the Kastelruther Spatzen (a well-known folk group, especially in German-speaking countries) who dedicated the song "Wiedermal a super Zeit" to Fill for his silver medal in super-G at the World Championships in Val-d'Isère in 2009.
Since 2007, Fill's manager has been Andreas Goller, who previously represented Kristian Ghedina. His ski technician is South-Tyrolean Sepp Kuppelwieser (who was ski man for Kjetil André Aamodt for ten years).
During the 2009 season, Atomic, Briko, Finstral, and Leki, as official sponsors and suppliers, decided to reward Fill for his excellent results achieved during the season, offering him the chance to win the Artega GT sport car if he were to capture the downhill at the World Cup finals in Sweden at Åre in March.
World Cup results Season titles 3 titles – (2 downhill - 1 combined) Season Discipline 2016 Downhill 2017 Downhill 2018 Combined
Season standings Season Age Overall Slalom Giantslalom Super-G Downhill Combined 2002 19 114 — — 33 — — 2003 20 65 — 28 34 45 — 2004 21 40 — 44 16 33 15 2005 22 30 — 36 30 19 8 2006 23 16 50 33 8 14 6 2007 24 6 — 25 9 4 7 2008 25 26 — 36 27 14 10 2009 26 10 — 31 10 9 8 2010 27 104 — — — 38 — 2011 28 21 — — 19 17 9 2012 29 35 — — 25 22 17 2013 30 38 — — 17 24 21 2014 31 15 — — 10 12 7 2015 32 34 — — 20 20 — 2016 33 10 — — 9 1 16 2017 34 6 — — 5 1 29 2018 35 16 — — 14 11 1
Race podiums 3 wins (2 DH, 1 SG) 22 podiums (13 DH, 5 SG, 4 AC) Season Date Location Discipline Place2006 13 Jan 2006 Wengen, Switzerland Super combined 3rd20 Jan 2006 Kitzbühel, Austria Super-G 2nd15 Mar 2006 Åre, Sweden Downhill 3rd2007 25 Nov 2006 Lake Louise, Canada Downhill3rd20 Dec 2006 Hinterstoder, Austria Super-G2nd29 Dec 2006 Bormio, Italy Downhill2nd13 Jan 2007 Wengen, Switzerland Downhill3rd2009 29 Nov 2008 Lake Louise, Canada Downhill1st16 Jan 2009 Wengen, Switzerland Super combined2nd2014 6 Dec 2013 Beaver Creek, USA Downhill3rd7 Dec 2013 Super-G3rd2016 28 Nov 2015 Lake Louise, Canada Downhill2nd29 Nov 2015 Super-G3rd23 Jan 2016 Kitzbühel, Austria Downhill1st2017 3 Dec 2016 Val-d'Isère, France Downhill2nd27 Jan 2017 Garmisch, Germany Downhill 3rd28 Jan 2017 2nd25 Feb 2017 Kvitfjell, Norway Downhill 2nd26 Feb 2017 Super-G1st15 Mar 2017 Aspen, USA Downhill 2nd2018 29 Dec 2017 Bormio, Italy Super combined2nd12 Jan 2018 Wengen, Switzerland Super combined3rd
World Championship results Year Age Slalom Giant slalom Super-G Downhill Combined 2003 20 DNF1 — 13 20 11 2005 22 — — 14 24 DNF 2007 24 — 23 14 11 13 2009 26 — — 2 14 5 2011 28 — — 9 14 3 2013 30 — — 14 12 — 2015 32 — — — — — 2017 34 — — 11 9 DNF1
Olympic results Year Age Slalom Giant slalom Super-G Downhill Combined 2006 23 — — 13 19 9 2010 27 — — DSQ 15 DNF2 2014 31 — — 8 7 DNF2 2018 35 — — DNF 6 DNF2
See also Italian skiers who closed in top 10 in overall World Cup
References
External links
Peter Fill at Italian Winter Sports Federation (FISI) Peter Fill at Atomic Skis Peter Fill at ski2b.com