Alpine skiing (or downhill skiing) is a recreational activity
and sport involving sliding down snow-covered hills with long, thin skis
attached to each foot.
Alpine skiing evolved from cross-country skiing when ski lift infrastructure
was developed at mountain resorts to tow skiers back to the top of slopes, thus
making it possible to repeatedly enjoy skiing down steep, long slopes that would
be otherwise too tiring to climb up. Thus, the sport is popular wherever the
combination of snow, mountain slopes, and a sufficient tourist infrastructure
can be built up, including much of Europe, North America, and Japan.
The main technical challenges faced by skiers are simply how to control the
direction and speed of their descent. Typically, novice skiers use a technique
called the "snowplough" to turn and stop by pointing one or both skis inward,
but more advanced skiers use more difficult but more elegant and speedier
methods. These more advanced methods are known as carving. To carve, a skier
rolls their knees but keeps the upper body and hips faced down the hill, so that
only the knees and feet are turned. This method is far faster and is used by
downhill racers.
As skiers gain confidence, they tackle steeper, longer and more uneven slopes
at higher speeds. In North America the easiest slopes are marked by green
circles, and are typically fairly flat and known as bunny hills. The mid-level
difficulty is that of a blue square, and are more challenging but not as much as
a black diamond. A black diamond is steeper than a blue square and usually
involves challenging terrain. A double black diamond is for experts only, and is
very difficult to ski. However, there is no standard for these designations, and
each ski resort determines them relative to their own terrain difficulty. So,
for instance, a blue-square (midlevel) trail at one ski mountain may be markedly
more difficult than a black-diamond (expert) trail at another mountain. In
Europe the system is based on colour alone, with the level of difficulty
increasing from green to blue to red to black.
Competitions
Various alpine skiing competitions have developed in the history of skiing,
and elite competitive skiers participate in the annual World Cup series, as well
as the Winter Olympic Games. Broadly speaking, competitive skiing is broken up
into two disciplines: Freestyle and Racing. Racing involves making fast turns
around gates in an attempt to get the fastest overall time down a course.
Slalom, GS, Super-G, and Downhill are the 4 racing disciplines, with Downhill
being the fastest event and Slalom being the most technical. Freestyle skiing
incorporates events such as Moguls, aerial acrobatics, and skier cross.
Athletes often enter the world of competitive skiing through junior-level
racing at ages as early as 9, which varies from state to state. Junior racing
becomes most competitive at the high school level. A typical high school meet
combines slalom, GS (Giant Slalom), and SuperG (Super Giant Slalom). However, in
some states, only slalom is raced. The most dedicated and serious junior racers
often opt to attend private high schools known as "ski academies", where
athletes are exposed to a regiment of physical conditioning, intense ski race
training, and conventional schooling. Many national team members come out of
such schools. Somewhat outside the domain of the traditional FIS governed events
lie newer forms of competitive skiing. Speed skiing involves competitors
striving to achieve the highest total speed in a straight line, with no gates or
turns. Freeskiing is another emerging sport growing quickly in popularity. In
freeskiing competitions athletes start at the top of a usually unskied mountain
and ski a route down that involves wide, fast turns as well as cliff drops. The
competitors are judged on the technical difficulty of their route and any tricks
(such as backflips) that they perform on the way down.
World Cup
Professional alpine skiers compete on the Alpine Skiing World Cup circuit in
Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G, and Downhill races held at various ski areas
around the world. Points are awarded in accordance with participants placing in
each individual race. At the end of the season, the athlete who accumulated the
highest points total from all disciplines is declared the overall champion and
awarded the World Cup. Separate cups are also awarded in each of the alpine
disciplines.
Freestyle skiing
Freestyle skiing began in the 1930s, when Norwegian skiers began using
ski acrobatics in alpine and cross country training. While not considered a
competitive sport, professional skiing exhibitions in the United States featured
performances of what would later be called freestyle.
Freestyle skiing, or "slopestyle," began to develop further throughout the
1960s and into the 1970s. The free-form sport had few rules, and wasn't without
danger.
The International Ski Federation (ISF) recognised freestyle as a sport in
1979 and brought in new regulations regarding certification of athletes and jump
techniques in an effort to curb the dangerous elements of the competitions. The
first World Cup series was staged in 1980 and the first World Championships took
place in 1986 in Tignes, France. Freestyle skiing was a demonstration event at
the Calgary Games in 1988. Mogul skiing was added to the official programme of
the Albertville Games in 1992 and aerials was added to the program of the
Lillehammer Games in 1994.
Currently (2006) there are two main disciplines of Freestyle Skiing: tricks
and Moguls. A new branch of freestyle skiing has recently emerged and is called
Newschool skiing.
Aerial skiing
Aerialists ski off ski jumps made of snow that propels the athlete up to
60-65 feet in the air. Once in the air, aerialists perform multiple flips and
twists before landing on a 37 degree inclined landing hill. The top men
aerialist jump maneuvers consist of performing triple back flips with up to four
or five twists. Quad back flips have been performed on snow, but currently
(2006) they are not legal in competition. Aerial skiing is the biggest trick
skiing competition.
Scoring
Aerial skiing is a judged sport and competitors are judged on jump takeoff
(20%), jump form (50%) and landing (30%). A degree of difficulty (DD) is then
factored in for a total score.
Summer Training
Aerialists train their jumping manoeuvres during the summer months by skiing off
specially constructed water-ramps and performing their jumps into a large
swimming pool. A water-ramp consist of a wooden ski ramp covered with a special
plastic mat that when lubricated allows an athlete to ski down the ramp towards
a ski jump. The skier then skis off the wooden jump and lands safely into a
large swimming pool. A burst of air is sent up from the bottom of the pool just
before landing to break up the surface area of the water, thus softening the
landing of the impact. Skiers reinforce the skis that they use for water-ramping
with 1/4 inch of fibreglass.
Summer training also includes training on trampoline; diving boards and other
acrobatic or gymnastic training apparatuses.
Mogul skiing
Mogul skiers ski down a field of moguls taking air twice on the way down.
They are scored on the form of their turns, the quality and difficulty of their
two aerial manoeuvres and their speed. Judging: Technique- 50%; Aerials- 25%;
Speed- 25%
| 2006 Winter Olympics
medal count |
| Pos |
Country |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
Total |
| 1 |
Germany |
11 |
12 |
6 |
29 |
| 2 |
United States |
9 |
9 |
7 |
25 |
| 3 |
Austria |
9 |
7 |
7 |
23 |
| 4 |
Russia |
8 |
6 |
8 |
22 |
| 5 |
Canada |
7 |
10 |
7 |
24 |
| 6 |
Sweden |
7 |
2 |
5 |
14 |
| 7 |
Korea |
6 |
3 |
2 |
11 |
| 8 |
Switzerland |
5 |
4 |
5 |
14 |
| 9 |
Italy |
5 |
0 |
6 |
11 |
| 10 |
France |
3 |
2 |
4 |
9 |
| Netherlands |
3 |
2 |
4 |
9 |
| 12 |
Estonia |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| 13 |
Norway |
2 |
8 |
9 |
19 |
| 14 |
China |
2 |
4 |
5 |
11 |
| 15 |
Czech Republic |
1 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
| 16 |
Croatia |
1 |
2 |
0 |
3 |
| 17 |
Australia |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| 18 |
Japan |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| 19 |
Finland |
0 |
6 |
3 |
9 |
| 20 |
Poland |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
| 21 |
Belarus |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Bulgaria |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Great Britain |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Slovakia |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| 25 |
Ukraine |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
| 26 |
Latvia |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
| |
|
84 |
84 |
84 |
252 |
|
