He is the second-youngest male alpine skier to win an Olympic gold medal (age 20 in 1992; Toni Sailer was two months younger in 1956).
For almost six years, Aamodt led the all-time Marathon World Cup ranking, with a total of 13,252 points earned from 1989 to 2006 – until 14 March 2012, when Austrian Benjamin Raich overtook him with a fifth place in the downhill at the 2012 World Cup final in Schladming to total 13,281 points, earned from 1998.
The five-time world champion and winner of four Olympic gold medals later revealed they were recovered by an anonymous helper over the internet.
[1] Aamodt announced the conclusion of his career on live television on 6 January 2007, with hundreds of fellow athletes in attendance, at the Norwegian Sports Gala (Idrettsgallaen) where he had been selected as awardee of the year for 2006.
[3] In February 2015 Aamodt (and Lasse Kjus) were selected as recipients of the Legends of Honor by the Vail Valley Foundation, and inducted into the International Ski Racing Hall of Fame.