Pernilla Wiberg

Pernilla Wiberg (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.[1]

Pernilla Wiberg

Alpine skier
Pernilla Wiberg in December 2011
Disciplines	Downhill, Super G, Giant Slalom, Slalom, Combined
Club	Norrköpings SK
Born	15 October 1970 Norrköping, Sweden
Height	1.61 m (5 ft 3 in)
World Cup debut	13 March 1990 – (age 19)
Retired	March 2002
Website	pernilla-wiberg.com
Olympics
Teams	4 – (1992 -2002)
Medals	3 (2 gold)
World Championships
Teams	5 – (1991 -2001)
Medals	6 (4 gold)
World Cup
Seasons	12 – (1991 -2002)
Wins	24
Podiums	61
Overall titles	1–1997
Discipline titles	4 – SL ('97), K ('94, '95, '97)
Medal record Women's alpine skiing Representing  Sweden International alpine ski competitions Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 2 1 0 World Championships 4 1 1 Total 6 2 1 Olympic Games 1992 Albertville Giant Slalom 1994 Lillehammer Combined 1998 Nagano Downhill World Championships 1991 Saalbach Giant Slalom 1996 Sierra Nevada Slalom 1996 Sierra Nevada Combined 1999 Vail Combined 1999 Vail Slalom 1997 Sestrières Downhill

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.[2] 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.[1]

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 with 5 wins, 2 silvers, 1 bronze, and 1 4th in 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.[3]

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.[4] In 1998 in Nagano, she won the downhill silver medal; Wiberg holds this achievement to be the best of her career.[5] 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.[1] 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.[6]

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."[7] The same year, 1991, she was awarded Jerring Award, an award she received again the following year.[8]

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–).[9] 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.[10]

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.[11] 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).[12][13] Since 1995, she lives in Monaco.[5]

As a businesswoman she owns and runs the Pernilla Wiberg Hotel at Idre Fjäll in Dalarna, Sweden.[14]

World Cup results

Season titles

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

Season	Discipline
1994	Combined
1995	Combined
1997	Overall
	Slalom
	Combined

Season standings

Season	Age	Overall	Slalom	Giant Slalom	Super G	Downhill	Combined
1990	19	45	17	—	—	—	—
1991	20	7	2	3	—	—	—
1992	21	5	2	5	28	—	—
1993	22	24	11	17	30	43	—
1994	23	2	2	11	5	11	1
1995	24	6	2	38	13	12	1
1996	25	8	3	34	19	10	—
1997	26	1	1	5	3	4	1
1998	27	35	24	28	36	29	11
1999	28	5	2	22	8	14	—
2000	29	33	28	41	21	22	—
2001	30	59	—	—	23	48	—
2002	31	23	—	57	13	10	12

Race victories

24 race victories (2 downhill, 3 super G, 2 giant slalom, 14 slalom, 3 combined)[15]

Season	Date	Location	Race
1991	7 January 1991	Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria	Slalom
	10 March 1991	Lake Louise, Canada	Giant Slalom
	20 March 1991	Waterville Valley, U.S.	Slalom
1992	28 February 1992	Narvik, Norway	Giant Slalom
1993	6 December 1992	Steamboat Springs, USA	Slalom
1994	12 December 1993	Veysonnaz, Switzerland	Slalom
	6 January 1994	Morzine, France	Slalom
	17 January 1994	Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy	Super-G
	5 February 1994	Sierra Nevada, Spain	Combined
1995	12 March 1995	Lenzerheide, Switzerland	Slalom
			Combined
1996	22 December 1995	Veysonnaz, Switzerland	Slalom
	29 December 1995	Semmering, Austria	Slalom
1997	1 December 1996	Lake Louise, Canada	Super-G
	28 December 1996	Semmering, Austria	Slalom
	4 January 1997	Maribor, Slovenia	Slalom
	12 January 1997	Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria	Super-G
	19 January 1997	Zwiesel, Germany	Slalom
	2 February 1997	Laax, Switzerland	Combined
	7 March 1997	Mammoth Mountain, U.S.	Slalom
	12 March 1997	Vail, U.S.	Downhill
	16 March 1997		Slalom
1999	3 January 1999	Maribor, Slovenia	Slalom
2000	18 December 1999	St. Moritz, Switzerland	Downhill

Discography

Singles

Title	Year	Peak chart positions	Album
		SWE
"Privilege"[16]	1992	39	Non-album singles

References

1. FIS-Ski – Biography. Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
2. "Sports briefly: ESPN commentator Axthelm dies at 47". Baltimore Sun. Baltimore. 3 February 1991. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
3. "Pernilla Wiberg: Executive Profile & Biography". bloomberg.com. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
4. Nationalencyklopedin – Pernilla Wiberg. (Swedish). Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
5. Pernilla Wiberg official website Archived 20 October 2004 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
6. "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.
7. "Bragdmedaljörer genom tiderna". SvD – Svenska Dagbladet. 4 December 2007. (Swedish). Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
8. Radiosporten – Jerringpriset Archived 26 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Radiosporten – sr.se. (Swedish). Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
9. IOC Members – Pernilla Wiberg. Retrieved on 9 September 2008.
10. "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.
11. Peace and Sport
12. "Pernilla och Bödvar fick en pojke". SvD – Svenska Dagbladet (TT). 23 August 2003. (Swedish). Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
13. "Pernilla Wiberg: "Det blev en liten Sofia"". Norrköping – Expressen. 16 December 2007. (Swedish). Retrieved on 11 September 2008.
14. Friberg, Anna (1 February 2015): ”Pernilla Wiberg: "Det kan låta drastiskt"”. expressen.se. accessdate: 1 October 2015.
15. World cup results at www.fis-ski.com
16. Pernilla Wiberg – Sverigetopplistan

External links

• Pernilla Wiberg at the International Ski Federation
• Pernilla Wiberg World Cup standings at the International Ski Federation
• Pernilla Wiberg at Ski-DB Alpine Ski Database
• pernilla-wiberg.com – official site
• Pernilla Wiberg Hotel in Sweden.