Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS).
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.
ChapStick is a brand name of lip balm manufactured by Haleon and used in many countries worldwide. It is intended to help treat and prevent chapped lips, hence the name. Many varieties also include sunscreen in order to prevent sunburn.
Picabo Street is an American former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist. She won the super G at the 1998 Winter Olympics and the downhill at the 1996 World Championships, along with three other Olympic and World Championship medals. Street also won World Cup downhill season titles in 1995 and 1996, the first American woman to do so, along with nine World Cup downhill race wins. Street was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 2004.
Annemarie Moser-Pröll is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Austria. Born in Kleinarl, Salzburg, she was the most successful female alpine ski racer during the 1970s, with an all-time women's record of six overall titles, including five consecutively. She had most success in downhill, giant slalom and combined races. In 1980, her last year as a competitor, she secured her third Olympic medal at Lake Placid and won five World Cup races. Her younger sister Cornelia Pröll is also a former alpine Olympian.
Julia Marie Mancuso is a retired American World Cup alpine ski racer, Olympic gold medalist and podcast host. She won the giant slalom at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and was the silver medalist in both downhill and combined in 2010, and the bronze medalist in the combined in 2014. She has also won five medals at the World Championships and seven races in regular World Cup competition. Her four Olympic medals are the most ever for a female American alpine skier.
Ski cross is a skiing competition which incorporates terrain features traditionally found in freestyle skiing with courses which include big-air jumps and high-banked turns. In spite of the fact that it is a timed racing event, it is often considered a type of freestyle skiing. What sets ski cross apart from other alpine skiing disciplines is that it involves more than one skier racing down the course. Any intentional contact with other competitors like grabbing or any other forms of contact meant to give the competitor an advantage leads to disqualification.
Debra Rae "Debbie" Armstrong is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from Seattle, Washington. She was the first Olympic gold medalist from the U.S. in women's alpine skiing in twelve years, winning the giant slalom at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
Chimene Mary "Chemmy" Crawford-Alcott is an English former World Cup alpine ski racer. She competed in all five disciplines: downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom and combined.
Lindsey Caroline Vonn is an American former World Cup alpine ski racer on the US Ski Team. She won four World Cup overall championships—third amongst female skiers to Annemarie Moser-Pröll and Mikaela Shiffrin—with three consecutive titles in 2008, 2009, and 2010, plus another in 2012. Vonn won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the first one for an American woman. She also won a record eight World Cup season titles in the downhill discipline, five titles in super-G, and three consecutive titles in the combined (2010–2012). In 2016, she won her 20th World Cup crystal globe title, the overall record for men or women, surpassing Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, who won 19 globes from 1975 to 1984. She has the third highest super ranking of all skiers, men or women.
Cynthia Lee Nelson is former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States.
Deborah Compagnoni is an Italian former Alpine skier who won three gold medals at the 1992, 1994, and 1998 Winter Olympics.
Steven Lee is an Australian alpine skier. He competed in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics, and had a competitive career lasting just on 25 years. He is the second of only 3 Australian skiers ever to claim victory on the Alpine World Cup circuit. He has also done sports commentating for channels 7, 9 and 10, co-owns Chill Factor magazine, and is a national selector and president of Falls Creek Race Club. He has worked in movies with Roger Moore and Jackie Chan.
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.
Jenny Owens is an Australian alpine and freestyle skier, who competed in multiple Winter Olympic Games, including 2002, 2010, and 2014 Games. Owens also competed in the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships twice and the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships twice. She competed for six years on the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup tour and nine years on FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup. She has competed in four Winter X Games, winning the bronze medal in the SkierX in 2012. Owens was a member of the Australian alpine team for seven years, followed by nine years as a member of the ski cross team.
Jannette Weston Burr was an American former professional alpine skier from Sun Valley, Idaho. She learned to ski in Sun Valley and competed in races across the globe during the 1950s, winning medals in many of them. In 1970, she was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.
The 44th World Cup season began on 24 October 2009, in Sölden, Austria, and concluded on 14 March 2010, at the World Cup finals in Garmisch, Germany.
Grete Eliassen is an American-Norwegian freestyle skier. She won a bronze medal in Slopestyle at the 2011 Winter X Games XV in Aspen, Colorado, behind Kaya Turski and Keri Herman. She has won 6 medals at the Winter X Games in slopestyle and halfpipe events including back to back gold medals in 2005 and 2006. Eliassen serves as the 16th president of the Women's Sports Foundation, effective January 2017.
Ski ballet is a form of ballet performed on skis. It is very similar to figure skating, combining spins, jumps, and flips in a two-minute routine choreographed to music. It was part of the professional freestyle skiing tours of the 1970s and 1980s and then an official FIS and Olympic discipline until the year 2000. Ski ballet became known as Acroski in the 1990s in an effort to legitimize its place among the competitive ski community, especially to the FIS. It is no longer a part of competitive freestyle skiing.
Ester Ledecká is a Czech snowboarder and alpine skier. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Ledecká won gold medals in the super-G in alpine skiing and in the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding, becoming the first person to not only compete in the Winter Olympics using two different types of equipment but to go further and win two gold medals and do so at the same Winter Olympics. She was the second woman to win an Olympic gold in two separate disciplines but the first to do so at the same Winter Olympics. She was the first Czech to win the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding at the FIS Snowboard World Cup.
