The men's overall competition in the 2016 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved 44 events in 5 disciplines: downhill (DH) (11 races), Super-G (SG) (8 races), giant slalom (GS) (11 races), slalom (SL) (11 races), and Alpine combined (AC) (3 races). The newly introduced Parallel giant slalom event at Alta Badia, Italy—which was included in the giant slalom season standings—was a relatively short Giant slalom course that pitted the men against one another in a modified bracket-reduction format from a field of thirty-two qualifying skiers, eventually whittled down to just four final-round racers in a "large final" (for the championship) and a "small final" (for third).
27-year-old Marcel Hirscher of Austria won the overall title for the fifth consecutive time, tying two all-time records: most overall World Cup titles by a man (five, tied with Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg, and one less than the overall record of six held since 1979 by Annemarie Moser-Pröll), and most consecutive titles (five, also held by Moser-Pröll).
An odd incident threatened to mar the early season as a small, remotely-piloted camera drone, operated by broadcast media to give viewers a taste of the skiers' field of vision, crashed and narrowly missed Hirscher during his second run in the slalom at Madonna di Campiglio just before Christmas. Hirscher nevertheless finished second in the race, but shortly after the incident, the International Ski Federation banned remotely-piloted vehicles from flying over their events as a matter of safety and concern for the welfare of their athletes, staff and viewers.
Through midseason, possession of the overall crystal globe for the season was closely fought between four-time overall champion Hirscher and two-time overall champion Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway, with Svindal actually in the lead, but on 23 January, in the legendary Streif downhill on the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbühel, Austria, Svindal fell and suffered a season-ending ligament tear in his right knee. Because of poor visibility and dangerous winds, which already had led the course to be shortened, the downhill produced three serious crashes in just 30 skiers, the minimum number for the race to be deemed official, before it was stopped—but the damage had already been done.
After Svindal's departure, Hirscher won the overall crystal globe by almost 500 points over Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway. In addition to Svindal and Kristofferson, two other Norwegians placed in the top 7 in overall points: Kjetil Jansrud and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde.
The finals were held in St. Moritz, Switzerland from 16 to 20 March 2016.
Standings #SkierDH11 racesSG8 racesGS11 racesSL11 racesAC3 racesTot. Marcel Hirscher024976678001,7952 Henrik Kristoffersen0048781101,2983 Alexis Pinturault0706902202201,2004 Kjetil Jansrud432375149401651,1615 Aksel Lund Svindal436310900809166 Dominik Paris432212001618057247415460487568 Felix Neureuther0035438907439 Carlo Janka3122597609073710 Peter Fill462226004873611 Adrien Théaux370248009671412 Victor Muffat-Jeandet01240516213070913 Beat Feuz41418200059614 Vincent Kriechmayr182298007555515 Andre Myhrer00176367054316 Hannes Reichelt296174150048517 Fritz Dopfer00144339048318 Romed Baumann199164008845119 Christof Innerhofer247184001844920 Steven Nyman3865400044021 Mathieu Faivre004230042322 Andrew Weibrecht14924430039623 Thomas Fanara003740037424 Boštjan Kline185172001537225 Travis Ganong25012000037026 Erik Guay24711700036427 Alexander Khoroshilov000358035828 Stefano Gross0003450345
See also 2016 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Men's summary rankings 2016 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Men's downhill 2016 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Men's super-G 2016 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Men's giant slalom 2016 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Men's slalom 2016 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Men's combined 2016 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Women's overall
References
External links Alpine Skiing at FIS website