Slalom

slalom, ski race that follows a winding course between gates (pairs of poles topped with flags), devised by British sportsman Arnold Lunn (later Sir Arnold Lunn) in the early 1920s. (Although in 1905 Austrian Matthias Zdarsky had developed a “testing run,” an 85-gate slalom, this had little effect and no influence on modern slalom racing.) Slalom is one of the Alpine events, so called because they originated in the Alps of Europe. It is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS), which held the first world championship in slalom in 1931. The sport was added to the Olympic Winter program in the 1936 Games held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ger.

The course is carefully designed to test the skill, timing, and judgment of competitors. The gates are placed in varying combinations, and it demands great skill to achieve the best line of approach and exit with the different combinations. A skier who misses a gate is disqualified. The gates are at least 75 cm (30 in) wide and 4 m (13 ft) apart. When first developed, slalom gates were small flags stuck in the snow; they were replaced by longer bamboo canes, which could snap back and hit competitors. To solve this problem, new plastic gates were devised that have springs to regulate the motion of the gates, thereby causing them to tilt when the skiers make contact with them. For Olympic and world championship events, the men’s course must have a vertical descent of 180 to 220 m (590 to 722 ft) and the women’s must have a drop of 130 to 180 m (426 to 590 ft); for other events and less-skilled contestants, the course may be shorter and less difficult. Men’s events use 55 to 75 gates; women’s use 45 to 60.

The giant slalom has characteristics of both the slalom and the downhill, the latter a longer, faster race. Giant slalom gates are wider and set farther apart, and the course is longer than in the slalom. The event was first included in the world championships in 1950 and in the Olympics in 1952. The supergiant slalom, or super-G, race is primarily a speed event, with many of the features of downhill skiing. The course is steeper and straighter than the other slalom events and features longer, more-sweeping turns taken at a higher speed. Just as in downhill, the winner is decided in a single run. The super-G was included in the world championships in 1987 and in the Olympics in 1988.

In top international events, slalom competitors usually take two runs without practice on two different courses. The winner is the one with the lowest combined time.