Encyclopedia > Downhill skiing

  Article Content

Alpine skiing

Redirected from Downhill skiing

Alpine skiing (or downhill skiing) is a recreational activity and sport involving sliding down snow-covered hills with long, thin skis attached to each foot.

Alpine skiing evolved from cross-country skiing when ski lift infrastructure was developed at mountain resorts to tow skiiers back to the top of slopes, thus making it possible to repeatedly enjoy skiing down steep, long slopes that would be otherwise too tiring to climb up. Thus, the sport is popular wherever the combination of snow, mountain slopes, and a sufficient tourist infrastructure can be built up, including much of Europe, North America, and Japan.

The main technical challenges faced by skiiers are simply how to control the direction and speed of their descent. Typically, novice skiiers use a technique called the "snowplough[?]" to turn and stop by pointing one or both skis inward, but more advanced skiiers use more difficult but more elegant and speedier methods. As skiiers gain confidence, they tackle steeper, longer and more uneven slopes at higher speeds.

Various alpine skiing competitions have developed, and elite competitive skiiers participate in the annual World Cup series, as well as the Winter Olympic Games.

Alpine skiing competition events include:

Professional alpine skiers compete on the World Cup circuit in Slalom, Giant Slalom[?], and Downhill races held at various sites in Europe, the United States, and Canada. Points are awarded in according to where the participant finishes in each individual race. At the end of the season, the personal accumulating the most points from all three race venues is the overall champion.

Overall Winners - Women:

Overall Winners - Men:

See also:



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Wheatley Heights, New York

... 13.0% of all households are made up of individuals and 5.2% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 3.42 and th ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 47.9 ms