Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline. It involves skiing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in slalom but less than in Super-G.
Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event during the 1983 season and was added to the official schedule of the World Championships in 1987 and the Winter Olympics in 1988.
Samuel Bode Miller is an American former World Cup alpine ski racer. He is an Olympic and World Championship gold medalist, a two-time overall World Cup champion in 2005 and 2008, and the most successful male American alpine ski racer of all time. He is also considered one of the greatest World Cup racers of all time with 33 race victories and being one of five men to win World Cup events in all five disciplines. He is the only skier with five or more victories in each discipline. In 2008, Miller and Lindsey Vonn won the overall World Cup titles for the first U.S. sweep in 25 years.
Alberto Tomba is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Italy. He was the dominant technical skier in the late 1980s and 1990s. At 182 cm and 90 kg, his powerful build was a contrast to the lighter, more traditional technical skiers who prioritised agility over muscle. Tomba was able to take advantage of the introduction of spring-loaded ski gates which replaced the older, solid gates in the early 1980s by using his power to maintain a faster, more direct line through courses. Tomba won three Olympic gold medals, two World Championships, and nine World Cup season titles: four in slalom, four in giant slalom, and one overall title. He was popularly called Tomba la Bomba.
Tina Maze is a retired Slovenian World Cup alpine ski racer.
Alpine skiing has been contested at every Winter Olympics since 1936, when a combined event was held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Snowboarding is a sport at the Winter Olympic Games. It was first included in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Snowboarding was one of five new sports or disciplines added to the Winter Olympic program between 1992 and 2002, and was the only one not to have been a previous medal or demonstration event. In 1998, four events, two for men and two for women, were held in two specialities: the giant slalom, a downhill event similar to giant slalom skiing; and the half-pipe, in which competitors perform tricks while going from one side of a semi-circular ditch to the other. Canadian Ross Rebagliati won the men's giant slalom and became the first athlete to win a gold medal in snowboarding. Rebagliati was briefly stripped of his medal by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after testing positive for marijuana. However, the IOC's decision was reverted following an appeal from the Canadian Olympic Association. For the 2002 Winter Olympics, giant slalom was expanded to add head-to-head racing and was renamed parallel giant slalom. In 2006, a third event, the snowboard cross, was held for the first time. In this event, competitors race against each other down a course with jumps, beams and other obstacles. On July 11, 2011, the International Olympic Committee's Executive Board approved the addition of Ski and Snowboard Slopestyle to the Winter Olympics roster of events, effective in 2014. The decision was announced via press conference from the IOC's meeting in Durban, South Africa. A fifth event, parallel slalom, was added only for 2014. Big air was added for 2018.
Theodore Sharp Ligety is a retired American alpine ski racer, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an entrepreneur, having cofounded Shred Optics. Ligety won the combined event at the 2006 Olympics in Turin and the giant slalom race at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. He is also a five-time World Cup champion in giant slalom. Ligety won the gold medal in the giant slalom at the 2011 World Championships. He successfully defended his world title in giant slalom in 2013 in Schladming, Austria, where he also won an unexpected gold medal in the super-G and a third gold medal in the super combined.
Combined is an event in alpine ski racing. A traditional combined competition consists of one run of downhill and two runs of slalom, each discipline runs on separate days. The winner is the skier with the fastest aggregate time. A modified version, the super combined, is a speed race and only one run of slalom, with both portions scheduled on the same day.
Martina Maria Ertl-Renz is a German former alpine skier. She was two times world champion and also won several medals at Olympic Winter Games and World Championships.
Gustav Thöni is a retired alpine ski racer from Italy.
Marcel Hirscher is an Austrian former World Cup alpine ski racer. Hirscher made his World Cup debut in March 2007. He competed primarily in slalom and giant slalom, as well as combined and occasionally in super G. Winner of a record eight consecutive World Cup titles, Hirscher has also won 11 medals at the Alpine Skiing World Championships, seven of them gold, a silver medal in slalom at the 2014 Winter Olympics, and two gold medals in the combined and giant slalom at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Due to his record number of overall titles and many years of extreme dominance of both slalom and giant slalom, he is considered by many, including his former rivals Henrik Kristoffersen, Kjetil Jansrud and Alexis Pinturault, to be one of the best alpine skiers in history. He won a total of 67 World Cup races, ranking second on the male all-time list.
Alexis Pinturault is a French World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic medalist.
Mikaela Pauline Shiffrin is an American two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and World Cup alpine skier. She is a three-time Overall World Cup champion, a four-time world champion in slalom, and a six-time winner of the World Cup discipline title in that event. Shiffrin is the youngest slalom champion in Olympic alpine skiing history, at 18 years and 345 days.
Snowboard racing is a form of snowboarding where competitors attempt to obtain the fastest time down a course. Snowboard racing can be done against the clock, or by two or more competitors racing in a head-to-head format.
Petra Vlhová is a Slovak World Cup alpine ski racer who specialises in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom. Vlhová won the World Cup overall title in 2021, becoming the first Slovak skier to achieve this feat.
Alpine skiing at the 2015 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival was held between 26–30 January 2015. Boys' and girls' events were held in Malbun, Liechtenstein, while the mixed event was held in St. Gallenkirch, Austria.
Marco "Blacky" Schwarz is an Austrian World Cup alpine ski racer. He focuses on the technical events of slalom and giant slalom, as well as the Alpine skiing combined and in which he’s the current World Champion.
The boys' giant slalom competition of the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics was held at the Les Diablerets Alpine Centre, Switzerland, on 13 January.
The boys' giant slalom competition of the alpine skiing events at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, was held on January 19, at the Patscherkofel. 64 athletes from 56 different countries took part in this event.
