Défago finished the 2005 World Cup season as sixth overall and fourth in the Super-G, his most successful season so far. In 2009 he won two downhill races in a row, the classics at Wengen and Kitzbühel.[2] He was the first to win these in consecutive weeks since Stephan Eberharter in 2002, and the first Swiss racer since Franz Heinzer in 1992.
While training on a glacier above Zermatt in mid-September 2010, Defago fell and injured ligaments in his left knee, ending his 2011 season.[3]
Défago announced his retirement in March 2015, after a second-place finish at the World Cup finals in the downhill in Méribel, France, and had his final World Cup race the next day in the super-G.[4]