Pernilla Wiberg
Pernilla Wiberg in December 2011
Personal information
Born (1970-10-15) 15 October 1970
Norrköping, Sweden
OccupationAlpine skier
Height1.61 m (5 ft 3 in)
Skiing career
DisciplinesDownhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, combined
ClubNorrköpings SK
World Cup debut13 March 1990 (age 19)
RetiredMarch 2002
Websitepernilla-wiberg.com
Olympics
Teams4 – (1992 -2002)
Medals3 (2 gold)
World Championships
Teams5 – (1991 -2001)
Medals6 (4 gold)
World Cup
Seasons13 – (1990 -2002)
Wins24
Podiums61
Overall titles1 – 1997
Discipline titles4 – SL (1997), K (1994, 1995, 1997)
Medal record
Women's alpine skiing
Representing  Sweden
World Cup race podiums
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
Slalom 14 14 7
Giant slalom 2 0 4
Downhill 2 5 1
Super-G 3 3 2
Combined 3 1 0
Total 24 23 14
International competitions
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
Olympic Games 2 1 0
World Championships 4 1 1
Total 6 2 1
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 1992 Albertville Giant slalom
Gold medal – first place 1994 Lillehammer Combined
Silver medal – second place 1998 Nagano Downhill
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 1991 Saalbach Giant slalom
Gold medal – first place 1996 Sierra Nevada Slalom
Gold medal – first place 1996 Sierra Nevada Combined
Gold medal – first place 1999 Vail Combined
Silver medal – second place 1999 Vail Slalom
Bronze medal – third place 1997 Sestrière Downhill

Pernilla Wiberg OLY[1] (born 15 October 1970) is a Swedish former alpine ski racer and businesswoman. She competed on the World Cup circuit between 1990 and 2002, where she became one of the few all-event winners. Having won two Olympic gold medals, four World Championships and one World Cup overall title, she is one of the most successful alpine ski racers of the 1990s. On club level, she represented Norrköpings SK. She was born in Norrköping.[2]

Career

After competing without much success in two junior world championships in 1987 and 1988, Wiberg got her international breakthrough in the early 1990s. In her World Cup debut in Vemdalen, Sweden, on 13 March 1990, she finished 5th in slalom, and five days later she finished 3rd in giant slalom in Åre. In the following season of 1991, she claimed three World Cup victories and a giant slalom gold medal at the 1991 World Championships in Saalbach. Her Alpine World Championship gold was the first for a Scandinavian woman in 33 years.[3] Until the end of her career in 2002, Wiberg won an additional 21 World Cup races, earning her a total of 24 World Cup race victories, including at least one victory in each of the five different alpine disciplines. In five World Championships she won six medals: four gold, one silver, and one bronze.[2]

Her finest season was in 1996–1997 when she won ten World Cup races and took the overall, slalom, and combined titles. She dethroned the previous years World Cup Overall winner Katja Seizinger by over 500 points. In the slalom discipline she was incredibly dominant, winning 5 races, finish second twice, and once each third and fourth, in that season's 9 World Cup slalom races. She won her first ever World Cup downhill in the World Cup finale weekend, making her one of the first women ever to win World Cup races in all 5 disciplines. She also led the World Cup Super-G standings until the final race, and needed only a 5th-place finish in the Super-G on World Cup finale weekend (with Gerg's 2nd-place finish) to secure the season Super-G title. Unfortunately on pace for a 2nd or 3rd-place finish and to easily reach this, she went off course, losing the season Super-G crystal globe to Hilde Gerg. Wiberg considers the Super-G her second best event after the slalom and her favorite event to ski, but it is where she has had the most bad luck and disappointment through her 4th place in Lillehammer, mistakes at the 96 and 97 worlds, and highly unlucky loss of the Super-G season crystal globe in the 97 season.

Today, Wiberg comments alpine skiing for Sveriges Television.[4]

Olympics

Wiberg won the giant slalom gold in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville and the combination gold medal in 1994 at Lillehammer. At both of these Olympics, Wiberg was the most successful Swedish athlete.[5] In 1998 in Nagano, she won the downhill silver medal; Wiberg holds this achievement to be the best of her career.[6] In her final Olympics in 2002 at age 31, she failed to reach the top ten and finished 14th in downhill and 12th in super-G.[2] The Olympic super-G was to be her final international race, as she announced her retirement a few weeks later, following surgery on her knees.[7]

Awards

In 1991, Wiberg was awarded the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal. The jury's motivation was: "For the sensational giant slalom victory in the World Championships, secured through a bold and skillful second leg."[8] The same year, 1991, she was awarded Jerring Award, an award she received again the following year.[9]

International Olympic Committee

Wiberg was elected a member of the International Olympic Committee in 2002 and served an eight-year mandate until 2010. She was a member of the following commissions: Athletes’ (2002–), Sport and Environment (2002), Ethics (2003–), Coordination for the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010 (2003–), Nominations (2003–).[10] On 2 September 2008, IOC announced that Wiberg would chair a commission appointed by the president of IOC, Jacques Rogge. The commission would analyse the projects of the shortlisted cities candidating for 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games.[11]

Activism

Pernilla is today a member of the ‘Champions for Peace’ club, a group of 114 (as of 29 November 2018) famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organization.[12] Other Champions for Peace members include Ukrainian former pole vaulter, Sergey Bubka, British long-distance runner, Paula Radcliffe, and Serbian tennis player, Novak Djokovic.

Personal life

Together with her husband Bødvar Bjerke, Wiberg has two children; Axel (b. 2003) and Sofia (b. 2007).[13][14] Since 1995, she lives in Monaco.[6]

As a businesswoman she owns and runs the Pernilla Wiberg Hotel at Idre Fjäll in Dalarna, Sweden.[15]

World Cup results

Season titles

5 titles (1 overall, 1 slalom, 3 combined)

Season Discipline
1994Combined
1995Combined
1997Overall
Slalom
Combined

Season standings

SeasonAgeOverallSlalomGiant
slalom		Super-GDownhillCombined
1990194517————
199120723———
19922152528——
1993222411173043—
19942322115111
199524623813121
19962583341910—
199726115341
199827352428362911
1999285222814—
2000293328412122—
20013059——2348—
20023123—57131012

Race victories

24 race victories (2 downhill, 3 Super-G, 2 giant slalom, 14 slalom, 3 combined)[16]

Season Date Location Race
19917 January 1991Bad Kleinkirchheim, AustriaSlalom
10 March 1991Lake Louise, CanadaGiant slalom
20 March 1991Waterville Valley, U.S.Slalom
199228 February 1992Narvik, NorwayGiant slalom
19936 December 1992Steamboat Springs, USASlalom
199412 December 1993Veysonnaz, SwitzerlandSlalom
6 January 1994Morzine, FranceSlalom
17 January 1994Cortina d'Ampezzo, ItalySuper-G
5 February 1994Sierra Nevada, SpainCombined
199512 March 1995Lenzerheide, SwitzerlandSlalom
Combined
199622 December 1995Veysonnaz, SwitzerlandSlalom
29 December 1995Semmering, AustriaSlalom
19971 December 1996Lake Louise, CanadaSuper-G
28 December 1996Semmering, AustriaSlalom
4 January 1997Maribor, SloveniaSlalom
12 January 1997Bad Kleinkirchheim, AustriaSuper-G
19 January 1997Zwiesel, GermanySlalom
2 February 1997Laax, SwitzerlandCombined
7 March 1997Mammoth Mountain, U.S.Slalom
12 March 1997Vail, U.S.Downhill
16 March 1997Slalom
19993 January 1999Maribor, SloveniaSlalom
200018 December 1999St. Moritz, SwitzerlandDownhill

Discography

Singles

Title Year Peak chart positions Album
SWE
"Privilege"[17] 1992 39 Non-album singles

See also

References

  1. ↑ "WOA Leadership". World Olympians Association. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 FIS-Ski – Biography. Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
  3. ↑ "Sports briefly: ESPN commentator Axthelm dies at 47". Baltimore Sun. Baltimore. 3 February 1991. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  4. ↑ "Pernilla Wiberg: Executive Profile & Biography". bloomberg.com. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  5. ↑ Nationalencyklopedin – Pernilla Wiberg. (Swedish). Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
  6. 1 2 Pernilla Wiberg official website Archived 20 October 2004 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
  7. ↑ "Pernilla Wiberg opererad och karriären är över" Archived 25 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine. ST.nu – Sundsvalls Tidning (TT). 1 March 2002. (Swedish). Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
  8. ↑ "Bragdmedaljörer genom tiderna". SvD – Svenska Dagbladet. 4 December 2007. (Swedish). Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
  9. ↑ Radiosporten – Jerringpriset Archived 26 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Radiosporten – sr.se. (Swedish). Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
  10. ↑ IOC Members – Pernilla Wiberg. Retrieved on 9 September 2008.
  11. ↑ "Pernilla Wiberg heads IOC Evaluation Commission for 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games", www.olympic.org – Official website of the Olympic Movement. 2 September 2008. Retrieved on 2008-09-09.
  12. ↑ Peace and Sport
  13. ↑ "Pernilla och Bödvar fick en pojke". SvD – Svenska Dagbladet (TT). 23 August 2003. (Swedish). Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
  14. ↑ "Pernilla Wiberg: "Det blev en liten Sofia"". Norrköping – Expressen. 16 December 2007. (Swedish). Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
  15. ↑ Friberg, Anna (1 February 2015): ”Pernilla Wiberg: "Det kan låta drastiskt"”. expressen.se. accessdate: 1 October 2015.
  16. ↑ World cup results at www.fis-ski.com
  17. ↑ Pernilla Wiberg – Sverigetopplistan
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