Marlies Raich is a retired Austrian World Cup alpine ski racer. She specializes in the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom. Schild won four Olympic medals, with silvers in the combined (2006) and slalom and a bronze in slalom (2006). She has seven World Championship medals and has won five World Cup season titles.

The FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is the top international circuit of alpine skiing competitions, launched in 1966 by a group of ski racing friends and experts which included French journalist Serge Lang and the alpine ski team directors from France and the USA. It was soon backed by International Ski Federation president Marc Hodler during the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1966 at Portillo, Chile, and became an official FIS event in the spring of 1967 after the FIS Congress at Beirut, Lebanon.