Champion skiers Mikaela Shiffren of the United States and Marcel Hirscher of Austria are used to winning trophies and earning points for their performances in skiing. But the two winners were surprised for a slightly different reason when they won the slalom event at the Alpine Skiing World Cup in Levi, Finland. Since 2013, the winners have been awarded a reindeer as well! As both winners also took out the 2013 competition, they each have two reindeer apiece.

The winners are allowed to choose a special name for their four-legged prizes, but they cannot actually take the animals with them when they leave. However they can keep in touch via social media.

Shiffrin named her first reindeer Rudolph, joking that "because then everybody knows, no matter how old or young you are, that Rudolph the Reindeer exists." So what does she plan to call her second reindeer? Why, Sven, of course, after the carrot-crazy reindeer from the movie "Frozen."

The reindeer herder who supplies the animals for the prizes in the World Cup, is Johanna Hietanen. She explained that in Finland, "reindeer are used for transportation, for meat markets, and also for clothes." The reindeer is very well-known in northern Finland, where the number of deer is around the same as the number of people living there.

Hirscher and Shiffrin are at the top of the male and female World Cup scores with 180 points each after two events. Shiffren is only 21 years old, but she has already won 21 World Cup victories, two world championship titles, an Olympic gold medal and not forgetting, of course, Rudolph and Sven.