The 42nd World Cup season began in October 2007 in Sölden, Austria and concluded on March 15, 2008, at the World Cup Finals in Bormio, Italy. (The team event scheduled for the following day was canceled, due to adverse weather conditions.)
The overall champions were Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn, both of the United States. It was Miller's second overall title and Vonn's first, and the first for an American woman in a quarter century. The last was Tamara McKinney in 1983, which was also the last U.S. sweep as Phil Mahre won his third consecutive overall title.
Miller won the 2008 title by a margin of 111 points over runner-up Benjamin Raich of Austria, while Vonn outpaced her closest rival, Austrian Nicole Hosp, by 220 points. Austria won the Nations Cup for the 20th consecutive season, scoring more than double the points of runner-up Switzerland.
Famous quotes containing the words alpine, world and/or cup:
“The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, ‘mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“I write mainly for the kindly race of women. I am their sister, and in no way exempt from their sorrowful lot. I have drank [sic] the cup of their limitations to the dregs, and if my experience can help any sad or doubtful woman to outleap her own shadow, and to stand bravely out in the sunshine to meet her destiny, whatever it may be, I shall have done well; I have not written this book in vain.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)