Schifferer's first successes were evident in the winter of 1992/93, when he achieved fifth place in the downhill at the Junior World Championships and became Austrian Junior Champion in Super-G. The next winter he won his first national championship title in super-G and in combination. Another seven titles followed in the next ten years. In the European Cup he reached top positions from the 1993/94 season and in the 1994/95 season he won the overall standings and the downhill standings with two wins and another four podium places. Schifferer also played sporadically in the World Cup in the winter of 1994/95 and scored his first World Cup points with 25th place in the giant slalom from Adelboden , and towards the end of the season he was 19th in the downhill from Bormio . After his success in the European Cup, he finally got a place in the World Cup for the 1995/96 season . Already in the second downhill of the season in Val-d'Isère he reached sixth place and before the turn of the year he was on the podium for the first time with second place in the downhill from Bormio. In January 1996, however, he had a hard fall while training on the Streif in Kitzbühel , suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma for three days , which is why he had to end the season early.
In the course of the 1996/97 season , Schifferer made it back to the top and was back on the podium in January with third place in the classic giant slalom at Chuenisbärgli in Adelboden. In this discipline he also won the bronze medal at the 1997 World Championships in Sestriere , which, as it turned out, was his only world championship; he was also fifth in the downhill. After two more podium places in the World Cup, he celebrated his first victory in the Vail Super-G on March 13, 1997 , ending the season sixth in the overall World Cup and third in the Super-G classification. In the winter of 1997/98 , Schifferer was the dominant downhill skier. With four wins and another two podium places, he decided the Downhill World Cup for himself. He also achieved good placements in the Super-G (including eighth place in the nine-time victory of the ÖSV ski team on the Patscherkofel) and second place in the overall World Cup in the giant slalom, albeit with a considerable deficit on the overall winner Hermann Maier . At the highlight of the season, the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano , things did not go according to plan for Schifferer. In the downhill he started immediately after Maier's spectacular retirement and ended up only seventh, in the Super-G he fell well short of expectations in 19th place. For his Downhill World Cup victory in 1998 he received the Golden Merit Award for Services to the Republic of Austria .
After an injury in summer training, Schifferer started the 1998/99 season with a long training deficit , but in December he again reached a podium in the giant slalom in Alta Badia . He was also regularly among the top ten in Downhill and Super-G, but in the strong Austrian team this was not enough to qualify for the World Championship in Vail / Beaver Creek . Schifferer had to go to the eliminations and did not qualify. After this disappointment, Schifferer won both downhill runs in Kvitfjell in March , which brought him to second place in the Downhill World Cup. At the end of the winter, he also achieved two podium places in the Super-G, with which he achieved third place in this discipline World Cup and sixth in the overall World Cup. In the 1999/2000 season , Schifferer achieved similar results as in the previous year, but ultimately fell short of his own expectations. He celebrated the only win of the season on December 18, 1999 in the downhill run from Val Gardena , three more times he was on the podium in the Super-G and the giant slalom. In the Downhill and Super G World Cup he fell back to seventh and fifth place, but in the overall World Cup he was able to improve by one place to fifth.
In the first few weeks of the 2000/01 season , Schifferer made it onto the podium twice, but after a serious fall in the giant slalom at Les Arcs on January 6, 2001, he had to end the season prematurely. In the winter of 2001/02 he found his way back to his old form late, but with third and fourth places in the two Super-Gs in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , he was still in the squad for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City . There he only started in the Super-G, in which he surprisingly won the bronze medal. Overall, the World Cup season was rather disappointing, only in the Super-G World Cup he achieved an appealing result with fifth place. Even in the next two years, Schifferer could not improve again significantly. Although he was repeatedly among the top ten, podium places remained the exception and he no longer achieved victories. Because he was denied participation in the 2003 World Cup in St. Moritz after a decision by the ÖSV management , there were major differences with the association, which Schifferer also reported through the media. For a short time he thought about starting for another country, but then stayed with the Austrian association. From the 2004/05 season , however, Schifferer finally lost touch with the top and top 10 placements became increasingly rare, and several material changes could not change that. On December 13, 2006, he announced his retirement as a ski racer and thus ended his career.
Austria
