Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding competitive discipline. It involves racing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in slalom but less than in Super-G.
Janica Kostelić is a Croatian former alpine ski racer. She is a four-time Olympic gold medalist. In addition to the Olympics, she won five gold medals at the World Championships. In World Cup competition, she won thirty individual races, three overall titles, three slalom titles, and four combined titles. Kostelic's accomplishments in professional skiing have led some commentators, writers, and fellow ski racers to regard her as the greatest female ski racer of all time.
Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, California, United States, consisted of six events. Competitions took place at Squaw Peak, KT-22, and Papoose Peak.
Alpine skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics consisted of ten events, held at Sestriere and Cesana-San Sicario, Italy. The races were held 12–25 February 2006.
India sent a delegation to compete at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy from 10–26 February 2006. This was the nation's seventh appearance in a Winter Olympic Games. The Indian delegation consisted of four athletes, two in alpine skiing, one in cross-country skiing, and one in luge. Their best performance in any event was 25th by luger Shiva Keshavan in the men's singles.
Ireland sent a delegation to compete at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy from 10–26 February 2006. This was Ireland's fourth appearance at a Winter Olympic Games. The Irish delegation to Turin consisted of eight athletes, two alpine skiers, one cross-country skier, one skeleton racer and four bobsledders. The best performance by any Irish competitor at these Olympics was 20th, by David Connolly in the men's skeleton race. The Bobsleigh team, Ireland's first and only at the Olympics finished 24th, driven by Peter O'Malley with John O'Donoghue on Breaks and the brothers Joe and Patrick Mullins rounding out the crew.
The Republic of Macedonia sent a delegation to compete at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy from 10–26 February 2006. This was Macedonia's third appearance at a Winter Olympic Games. The delegation consisted of three athletes; Ivana Ivčevska and Gjorgi Markovski in alpine skiing, and Darko Damjanovski in cross-country skiing. Their best performance in any event was 40th, by Ivčevska in the women's giant slalom.
Alpine skiing has been contested at every Winter Olympics since 1936, when a combined event was held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Combined is an event in alpine ski racing. The event format has changed within the last 30 years. A traditional combined competition is a two-day event consisting of one run of downhill and two runs of slalom; each discipline takes place on a separate day. The winner is the skier with the fastest aggregate time. Until the 1990s, a complicated point system was used to determine placings in the combined event. Since then, a modified version, called either an "alpine combined" or a "super combined", has been run as an aggregate time event consisting of two runs: first, a one-run speed event and then only one run of slalom, with both portions held on the same day.
The 2nd World Cup season began in January in West Germany and concluded in April in the US Jean-Claude Killy of France repeated as the overall champion, and announced his retirement from World Cup competition. Nancy Greene of Canada repeated as the women's World Cup overall champion, and announced her retirement from World Cup competition.
The last event of the women's alpine skiing, the giant slalom, took place on Friday, 24 February. Kostelić was a favourite once again, as she was defending Olympic champion, but Swede Anja Pärson led the World Cup and was defending World Champion of the event. Kostelić was second in the World Cup standing, however, while Austrian Kathrin Zettel was third.
Sonja Nef is a Swiss former alpine skier. Nef was women's World Champion in giant slalom in 2001. She won the 2001 and 2002 World Cup in Giant slalom. At the 2002 Winter Olympics, she finished third in giant slalom.
Francisco "Paquito" Fernández Ochoa was a World Cup alpine ski racer from Spain. Born in Madrid and raised north of the city in Cercedilla, he was the eldest of eight children whose father ran a ski school. Paquito raced in all of the alpine disciplines and specialized in slalom.
Maria Höfl-Riesch is a former German alpine ski racer. She is a three-time Olympic champion, two-time World champion, an overall World Cup champion and five-time World junior champion.
Nicolien Sauerbreij is a Dutch professional snowboarder. She won seven World Cup races and ranked first in the parallel giant slalom standings of the 2007–2008 and the 2009–2010 World Cup. She competed in the Winter Olympic Games of 2002, 2006 and won the gold medal in the women's parallel giant slalom in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Elisabeth Görgl is a retired World Cup alpine ski racer from Austria.
Lebanon sent a delegation to compete at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from 12–28 February 2010. This was Lebanon's 15th appearance at a Winter Olympic Games. The Lebanese team consisted of three alpine skiers. Lebanon has never won a medal at a Winter Olympics, and their best performance in Vancouver was 37th in the women's super-G by Chirine Njeim; Ghassan Achi failed to post a result in either of his races, and Jacky Chamoun finished 54th in her only race.
Maria Kirkova is a Bulgarian female skier. She was the flagbearer for Bulgaria and a competitor during the 2014 Winter Olympics and took part in the Alpine skiing events at all four Winter Olympics between 2006 and 2018 as well as the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in 2003 and six championship from 2007 to 2017.
Celina Seghi was an Italian alpine skier. Born in Abetone, Tuscany, she was the youngest child in a family of nine and earned her first Italian championship medal, a bronze in the slalom, in 1934.
Marion Posch is an Italian snowboarder.
