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.
Vasaloppet is an annual long distance cross-country ski race held on the first Sunday of March. The 90 km (56 mi) course starts in the village of Berga, just south of Sälen in western Dalarna, Sweden, and ends in the town of Mora in the central part of the province. It is the oldest cross-country ski race in the world, as well as the one with the highest number of participants.
Åre is a locality and one of the leading Scandinavian ski resorts situated in Åre Municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden with 3,200 inhabitants in 2018. It is, however, not the seat of the municipality, which is Järpen. 25% of the local economy is based on tourism, most notably the downhill skiing and biking resorts in Åre, Duved and Storlien. The growth in tourism has resulted in the development of hotels, recreational and shopping opportunities in the area.
Fritz Strobl is a former World Cup alpine ski racer.
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 a "super combined" or an "Alpine 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.
Aksel Lund Svindal is a Norwegian former World Cup alpine ski racer. Born in Lørenskog in Akershus county, Svindal is a two-time overall World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist in super-G at the 2010 Winter Olympics and in downhill at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and a five-time World Champion in downhill, giant slalom, and super combined. With his victory in the downhill in 2013, Svindal became the first male alpine racer to win titles in four consecutive world championships.
Gustav Thöni is an Italian retired alpine ski racer.
Magnus Ingesson, born February 18, 1971, in Luleå, Sweden, is a Swedish former cross-country skier who competed from 1993 to 2004. He earned a silver medal in the 4 × 10 km relay at the 2001 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti, and had his best individual finish of ninth in the 15 km event at those same championships.
Peter Fill is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from northern Italy. Born in Brixen, South Tyrol, he formerly competed in all disciplines, and later focused on the speed events of downhill, super-G, and combined. Fill won the World Cup season title in downhill in 2016 and in 2017, and the combined title in 2018.
The FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1954 were held in Åre, Sweden, from 28 February – 7 March.
Maria Helena Pietilä-Holmner is a retired Swedish World Cup alpine ski racer. She specialised in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom.
Jon Anders Olsson is a former professional freeskier and alpine ski racer from Sweden. Born in Mora, Olsson started his career as a ski racer but at age 16 he switched his race skis for twin tips and quit ski racing. Eight years later, after a 50 000 SEK (US$5826.22) bet with fellow skier Jens Byggmark, Olsson started ski racing again with the goal of the bets being to make it to the Olympics in 2014. He now competes in both freestyle and ski racing. Olsson is known for his invention of several new double flips, including a D-spin 720 into a flatspin 540, a switch double rodeo 1080, a double flatspin 900, and a switch cork 720 to flatspin 540.
The Swedish Ski Team is the national skiing sport team of Sweden.
Kjetil Jansrud is a Norwegian former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic champion. He competed in all alpine disciplines apart from slalom, and his best event was the giant slalom where he has six World Cup podiums and an Olympic silver medal. Since 2012, he had concentrated on the speed events, where all but two of his World Cup victories had come. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he won the super-G and placed third in the downhill. At the World Championships in 2019 at Åre, Jansrud won gold in the downhill.
Anna-Karin Strömstedt Olsson is a retired Swedish cross-country skier and biathlete who has competed since 1998. Her lone World Cup victory was in a 4 × 5 km relay event in Switzerland in 2007.
Dominik Paris is an Italian alpine ski racer, who specializes in speed events of super-G and downhill. He was the world champion in super-G, as the gold medalist in 2019 at Åre, Sweden.
Mikaela Pauline Shiffrin is an American World Cup alpine skier who has the most World Cup wins of any alpine skier in history. She is considered one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time. She is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, a five-time Overall World Cup champion, a four-time world champion in slalom, and an eight-time winner of the World Cup discipline title in that event. Shiffrin, at 18 years and 345 days, is the youngest slalom gold medalist in Olympic history.
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 and the gold medal in the 2022 Winter Olympics in the slalom event, becoming the first Slovak skier to achieve these feats.
Michelle Gisin is a Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer and competes in all disciplines. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, she won the Women's combined event in 2018 Winter Olympics, and Women's combined at the 2022 Winter Olympics. Born in Samedan, Graubünden, Gisin is the younger sister of alpine ski racers Marc and Dominique Gisin.
The women's downhill in the 2019 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup involved eight events, including the season finals in Soldeu, Andorra. Defending discipline champion Sofia Goggia of Italy fractured her ankle prior to the start of the season and missed five of the eight events, ending her chances to repeat. In addition, 2018 runner-up Lindsey Vonn of the USA, who had closed the prior season by winning all of the final four downhills and needed only four more victories to equal Ingemar Stenmark's all-time World Cup victory record, began the season injured and announced her planned retirement at the end of the season, but was hampered during her comeback by her cumulative injuries, and finally retired immediately after the conclusion of the 2019 World Ski Championships.
