Slalom Skiing

Slalom is an alpine skiing discipline. It involves skiing between poles (gates) spaced much closer together than in Giant Slalom, Super-G or Downhill, thereby causing quicker and shorter turns. It is regarded as the most technically challenging of the alpine ski disciplines.

Slalom and Giant Slalom make up the technical events in alpine ski racing. This category separates them from the speed events like Super-G and Downhill.

A course is constructed by laying out a series of gates. Gates are generally formed by alternating two red poles and two blue poles. The skier must pass between the two poles forming the gate. (Strictly speaking, the tips of both skis and the skier's feet must pass between the poles.)

For slalom the vertical offset between gates is around 9m and the horizontal offset around 2m, although these figures have changed in recent times because of significant technical developments in ski equipment which have revolutionized the sport. The gates are arranged in a variety of different configurations to challenge the competitor. The worldwide govening body, FIS (Federation Internationale de Ski) has a set of regulations detailing what configurations are allowed or mandated for an official course.

Because the offsets are relatively small in slalom, skiers take a fairly direct line and often knock the poles out of the way as they pass, which is known as cross-blocking (the right hand hits the gate on the skier's left side). In modern slalom, a variety of protective equipment is used such as shin pads, hand guards, helmets and face guards.

The rules for the modern slalom were developed by Sir Arnold Lunn in 1922 for the British National Ski Championships, tried by the FIS in 1928, and adopted for the 1936 Winter Olympics. Under his rules, the gates were marked by pairs of flags rather than single ones, were arranged so that the racers had to use a variety of turn lengths to negotiate them, and scoring was on the basis of time alone, not time and style.

The 2003-2004 season saw the FIS increase the minimum length of Slalom skis in an attempt to increase safety; for men from 155cm to 165cm, and for women from 150cm to 155cm.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Uses material from the article Slalom skiing.