Alpine Skiing

Alpine ski racing is the newer form of ski racing, as Nordic or cross-country competitions were held in the Scandinavian countries for many years before Alpine racing was developed. The first known Alpine skiing race was in 1911, at Montana, Switzerland, when the British organized a downhill race for a challenge cup given by Lord Roberts, of Kandahar. The first slalom style race was held in 1922 at Mürren, Switzerland.

Alpine skiing was first placed on the Olympic Programme at Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936. The only events that year were a combined competition of downhill and slalom, for both men and women. In 1948, this was held again, along with separate downhill and slalom races. In 1952, the giant slalom was added as an event, and, in 1988, the super giant slalom became a fourth separate event. Alpine combination, originally a point-scored mix of downhill and slalom, returned to the Olympic Winter Games in 1988, after not being contested from 1952-1984. It was later switched to being decided on time rather than points.

As aforementioned, events for both sexes were held in 1936, and have been at all Olympics since. Men and women contest Alpine skiing separately but, interestingly, the programme for men and women has been identical at all Olympics, one of the few Olympic sports that can make that claim. In 2018, a new mixed team event was added to the Olympic programme.

The sport is governed by the Fédération internationale de ski (FIS), which was founded on 2 February 1924 during the Chamonix Olympics. The FIS succeeded the Internationale Skikommission (CIS), which had been formed on 18 February 1910 in Christiania (today Oslo). Despite keeping the acronym FIS, on 26 May 2022, at the FIS Congress at Milano, Italy, its name was changed to the International Ski & Snowboard Federation. FIS not only governs Alpine skiing, but also the Olympic disciplines of cross country skiing, freestyle skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and snowboarding. As of 2024, the FIS had 138 member associations.

Austria, Switzerland, and the United States have been the top nations in Olympic Alpine skiing, with France, Italy, Germany, and Norway not far behind, as of 2022.

Through 2022, the greatest alpine skier among the men has been Kjetil André Aamodt of Norway, who won a record eight medals and four gold medals in the sport. He is followed by Italian Alberto Tomba (five medals) and Austrian Matthias Mayer (four medals), who have both won three gold medals, and by Toni Sailer of Austria and Jean-Claude Killy of France, both of whom won all three gold medals available in 1956 and 1968, respectively.

Two women, Croatia’s Janica Kostelić and Sweden’s Anja Pärson, both have six Olympic medals, a record for women as of 2022. Kostelić leads the women’s gold count, equaling Aamodt with four golds. She is followed by Swiss Vreni Schneider, Italian Deborah Compagnoni, and Germans Maria Höfl-Riesch and Katja Seizinger, all with three golds.