SkiingTypes

Downhill Skiing

The downhill is an alpine skiing discipline. The rules for the downhill were originally developed by Sir Arnold Lunn for the 1921 British National Ski Championships.

"Downhill skiing" is also commonly a term synonymous with "alpine skiing" to denote the sport and recreational activity of alpine skiing in general.

More generally, the term may be used in any sport involving the speedy descent of a hillside. Examples include snowboarding, mountain biking, different skateboarding variants, such as street luge and longboarding, freebording and mountain boarding and even municycling.

The "downhill" discipline involves the highest speeds and therefore the greatest risks of all the alpine events. Racers on a typical international-level course will exceed speeds of 130 kilometers per hour (80 mph) and some courses, such as the famous Hahnenkamm course in Kitzb?hel, Austria, speeds of up to 150 kilometers per hour (93 mph) in certain sections are expected. Competing in the downhill event requires of racers considerable strength and technical expertise.

A typical downhill course begins at or near the top of the mountain on a piste that is closed off to the public and groomed specially for the race. Water or salt are often spread throughout the course to insure that it gets icy, which inhibits dangerous rutting of the course, but also increases speed. Gates (which are always the same color) downhill, in contrast to the other alpine skiing disciplines) are spaced great distances apart, but not out of sight from each other. The courses in the world's most famous ski areas are well-established and do not change much from year to year.

The course is designed to challenge the best skiers in a variety of tasks: skiing at high speeds over ice, through challenging turns, extreme steeps, flats, and large airs(jumps). A good course will have all these elements in it, as well as some jumps intended to complicate matters and thrill both the racer and the spectators.

Equipment for the downhill is a little bit different from the lower-speed alpine events. Skis are 30% longer than those used in slalom, to provide added stability at high speed and often have rounded, low-profile tips rather than pointed tips. Ski poles are bent so as to curve around the body as the racer stays in a "tuck position" and may have aerodynamic, cone-shaped baskets. As in other alpine disciplines, downhill racers wear skin-tight suits to minimize drag, and helmets are mandatory.

In an attempt to increase safety, the 2003-2004 season saw the FIS increased the minimum sidecut radius for downhill skis to 45 meters (from 40 m) and impose minimum ski lengths for the first time: 215 cm for men and 210 cm for women.

In all forms of downhill, both at a local youth-level as well as the higher FIS international level, racers are allowed extensive preparation for the race, which includes daily course inspection and discussion with their coaches and teammates as well as several practice runs before the actual race. Racers do not make any unnecessary turns while on the course, and try and do everything they can to maintain the most aerodynamic position while negotiating turns and jumps.

Unlike slalom and giant slalom, where racers have two combined times, in the downhill, the race is a single "run." Times are typically between 1:30 (1 minute, 30 seconds) and 2:30 for World Cup courses and must be over 1 minute in length to meet international minimum standards. Tenths and hundreths of seconds count: World Cup races and Olympic medals have sometimes been decided by as little as one or two one-hundreths of a second, and ties are not unheard of.

Safety netting and padding are placed in worrisome areas where race officials anticipate crashes. Despite these safety precautions, the ski racing community is well aware of the inherent risks in downhill skiing, for it is possible for racers to suffer serious injury or death while practicing or competing. Two downhill-related deaths on the World Cup in recent years were those of Austrian Ulrike Maier in 1994 and Frenchwoman R?gine Cavagnoud in 2001. Also in 2001, Swiss downhiller Silvano Beltrametti was paralyzed in a high-speed crash.

Super G Skiing

The Super Giant Slalom is an alpine skiing discipline. It is usually referred to as Super G and is considered a "speed" discipline along with Downhill (the "technical" disciplines are giant slalom and slalom).

Super G incorporates aspects of both downhill and giant slalom racing. It involves skiing between widely spaced gates as in Giant Slalom, but with fewer turns over a longer course and with higher speeds approaching those achieved in Downhill. The minimum number of gates is 35 for men and 30 for women. Super G skiers will often assume the "tuck" position as in Downhill, but will continue turning constantly as in Giant Slalom, rarely encountering the periodic straight "gliding" sections of a Downhill course. Super G courses in international competition must be at least one minute in length and can be as long as one minute and 45 seconds. Speeds at the World Cup level generally average from 88-96 km (55-60 miles) per hour.

Super G is unique in that it is conducted over one run, like Downhill, but racers are not permitted to train the course at full speed before the race. As in giant slalom and slalom, they are allowed only a one hour visual inspection of the course on the morning of the race. This distinction adds to the unpredictable nature of the event and requires ski racing abilities that are different from the other three disciplines.

Super G was first introduced on the World Cup level in December 1982 at Val d'Isere (won by Switzerland's Peter M?ller) and was added to the World Championships at Crans-Montana in February 1987, where Swiss stars Pirmin Zurbriggen and Maria Walliser won gold medals. Super Giant Slalom made its Olympic debut at the 1988 Games in Calgary where Franck Piccard of France and Sigrid Wolf of Austria took gold.

Hermann Maier of Austria is widely regarded as the greatest Super G skier with 23 World Cup victories, five World Cup titles, a World Championship, and an Olympic gold medal. His proficiency in Super G is attributed to his thorough course inspection and his aggressive course tactics wherein he opted for the most direct and dangerous line down the hill. Another notable specialist is Kjetil Andr? Aamodt of Norway, who won three gold medals in Olympic Super G races in 1992, 2002, and 2006.

In an attempt to increase safety, the 2003-04 season saw the FIS impose minimum ski lengths for the Super Giant Slalom for the first time; to 205cm for men, 200cm for women. A minimum turning radius of 33m continues to apply.

 

Giant Slalom Skiing

Giant slalom is an alpine skiing discipline. It involves skiing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance to each other than in slalom but not as great as in super G. The number of gates in this event ranges from 56 to 70 for men and from 46 to 58 for women.

Giant slalom and slalom make up the "technical events" in alpine ski racing. This category separates them from the "speed events" like super G and downhill.

The number of direction changes in a GS course equals 11% - 15% of the vertical drop of the course in meters, 13% - 15% for children. The vertical drop for a GS course must be 250 - 400 meters for women, 250 - 450 meters for men. (Source: http://www.fis-ski.com/data/document/ICR04.pdf, p. 81). As an example, on a 300 m vertical course, there would be between 33 and 45 direction changes for an adult race.

Giant slalom skis are longer than slalom skis, but not as long as super G and downhill skis.

In an attempt to increase safety, the 20032004 season saw the FIS increase the minimum sidecut radius for giant slalom skis to 21 meters and impose minimum ski lengths for the first time: 185 cm for men and 180 cm for women. A maximum stand height (the distance from the snow to the sole of the boot) of 55 millimeters was also established for all disciplines.

In May 2006, the FIS announced further changes to the rules governing equipment. Beginning with the 20072008 season, the minimum radius for GS skis will be 27 meters for men and 23 meters for women. Additionally, the minimum ski width at the waist will be increased from 60 to 65 millimeters, and the maximum stand height for all disciplines will be reduced to 50 millimeters.

Slalom Skiing

Slalom is an alpine skiing discipline, involving skiing between poles (gates) spaced much closer together than in Giant Slalom, Super-G or Downhill, thereby causing quicker and shorter turns.

"Slalom" from the Morgedal dialect of Norwegian slal?m: "sla," meaning slightly inclining hillside, and "l?m," meaning track after skis. The inventors of modern skiing classified their trails according to their difficulty. Slal?m was a trail used in Telemark by boys and girls not yet able to try themselves on the more challenging runs. Ufsil?m was a trail with one obstacle (ufse) like a jump, a fence, a difficult turn, a gorge, a cliff (often more than 10 meters high) and more. Uvyrdsl?m was a trail with several obstacles.

Slalom and Giant Slalom make up the "technical events" in alpine ski racing. This category separates them from the "speed events" like Super-G and Downhill.

A course is constructed by laying out a series of gates. Gates are formed by alternating pairs of red and blue poles. The skier must pass between the two poles forming the gate. (Strictly speaking, the tips of both skis and the skier's feet must pass between the poles.) A course has 55 to 75 gates for men and 40 to 60 gates for women.

For slalom the vertical offset between gates is around 9 meters (30 feet) and the horizontal offset around 2 meters (6.5 feet), although these figures have changed in recent times because of significant technical developments in ski equipment (namely, increased sidecut) which have revolutionized the sport. The gates are arranged in a variety of different configurations to challenge the competitor, including delay gates and vertical combinations known as hairpins and flushes. The worldwide governing body, FIS (Federation Internationale de Ski) has a set of regulations detailing what configurations are allowed or mandated for an official course.

Because the offsets are relatively small in slalom, skiers take a fairly direct line and often knock the poles out of the way as they pass, which is known as blocking. (The main blocking technique in modern slalom is cross-blocking, in which the skier takes such a tight line and angulates so strongly that he or she is able to block the gate with the outside hand.) In modern slalom, a variety of protective equipment is used such as shin pads, hand guards, helmets and face guards.

The rules for the modern slalom were developed by Sir Arnold Lunn in 1922 for the British National Ski Championships, tried by the FIS in 1928, and adopted for the 1936 Winter Olympics. Under his rules, the gates were marked by pairs of flags rather than single ones, were arranged so that the racers had to use a variety of turn lengths to negotiate them, and scoring was on the basis of time alone, not time and style.

Innovation and rule changes

In the early 1980s, bamboo poles were replaced by hard plastic hinged poles known as "rapid gates" or "breakaway gates." The new gates allowed skiers to take a much more direct path down a slalom course through the process of "cross-blocking" or "as shinning" the gates. The rigid nature of bamboo gates had forced skiers to maneuver their entire body around each gate, while the hinged gates require only that the skis and boots of the skier (as the FIS rules state) go around each gate, with the body passing through or on the inside of the pole. In the early 1990s, flags were removed completely from slalom gates in international competition.

With the innovation of "shaped" skis around the turn of the century, equipment used for slalom in international competition changed drastically. World Cup skiers commonly skied on slalom skis at a length of 203-207 centimeters in the 1980s and 1990s but by the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the majority of competitors were using skis measuring 160 cm or less.

The downside of the shorter skis was that athletes found that recoveries were more difficult with a smaller platform underfoot. Over concern for the safety of athletes, the FIS began to set minimum ski lengths for international slalom competition. The minimum was initially set at 155 cm for men and 150 cm for women, but was increased to 165 cm for men and 155 cm for women for the 2003-2004 season.

American Bode Miller hastened the shift to the shorter, more radical sidecut skis when he achieved unexpected success after becoming the first Junior Olympic athlete to adopt the equipment in giant slalom and super G in 1996. A few years later, the technology was adapted to slalom skis as well.

Combined Skiing

Combined is an alpine skiing event. Although not technically a "discipline" of its own, it is sometimes referred to as a fifth alpine discipline, along with downhill, super G, giant slalom, and slalom.

A combined traditionally consists of one run of downhill and two runs of slalom, in that order, although recently the International Ski Federation (FIS) has introduced the super combined (or "super combi"), consisting of just a single run of slalom (which may be run first) and either a shortened downhill run or a super G run. In either type of combined event, the winner is the skier with the fastest aggregate time for both portions of the race.

Alpine skiing made its first appearance in the 1936 Winter Olympics as a combined event.

In the Winter Olympics and World Championships, the slalom and downhill portions of a combined event are run separately from the regular slalom and downhill, on shorter courses. On the World Cup circuit, combined events have often been "paper races," combining skiers' times from a separately scheduled downhill race and slalom race, generally held at the same location over two days. Recently, the FIS has begun to replace these "calculated" combineds with super combi events held all on one day, which administrators hope will convince more skiers from more nations to compete in all disciplines. The first super combi was a World Cup race held on January 14, 2005, in Wengen, Switzerland; Benjamin Raich of Austria was the winner. The first women's race in the new format was run in San Sicario, Italy, on February 27, 2005 and won by Croatia's Janica Kosteli?. The next season, the 2005-06 World Cup calendar included, on the men's side, three super combis and just one traditional combined race, while the women raced two super combis and no traditional combineds. (Kosteli? has won all three World Cup super combis held so far.)

The FIS has announced its intention to begin awarding a fifth discipline-champion "crystal globe" to the points winner of combined races in each World Cup season beginning with the 2006-07 edition, which includes five combined races for each gender. Nine out of the ten scheduled combineds use the new super combi format.