Alpine and Freestyle Skiing in the Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympics is becoming ever more popular with Brits, and this is down in part to the recent successes of the Women Curlers winning gold back in 2002 and Amy Williams repeating the feat in 2010.
But despite this growth in popularity, there are still many people who do not know all the different disciplines found at the Winter Olympics, so to help you along, here is a guide of all the different alpine skiing and freestyle skiing events regularly held at the famous event.
Alpine Skiing Alpine skiing is the most popular sport with recreational skiers and has been a part of the Winter Olympics since 1936.
Alpine racing has now grown to include the slalom, giant slalom, Super-G, and downhill, as well as an event called the super combined.
The main variation between the events is the distance between the gates on the slope and the offset of the gates.
Here is a brief guide to each alpine skiing event.
Downhill: This is the fastest of all the alpine disciplines and courses are generally longer and include lots of jumps.
Super G: Similar to the Downhill, this discipline is made for speedsters, and racers have just one run down the slope, but in contrast to Downhill, this event focuses more on turns.
Slalom and Giant Slalom: Racers are allowed to have two runs down the track, with the times from both being combined.
Gates are closer together in the slalom and require participants to change directions quickly, whilst giant slalom courses are longer and more open but much faster.
Super Combined ski races: This includes a single slalom race and either a Super-G race or a shorter than normal downhill run.
Freestyle skiing Freestyle skiing includes a range of different activities.
The freestyle skiing events in the Winter Olympics are: The Ski Cross: This is an event where skiers go through a course featuring shaped objects such as banked turns and large jumps.
Freestyle Moguls: Skiers rapidly descend down a mogul field and are judged on their two aerial manoeuvres, speed and turns.
Freestyle Aerials: Participants take off from steep ramps and perform twisting tricks and somersaults and are judged on takeoff, jump form and landing, with the difficulty of the trick also being taken into account.
Slopestyle: Participants are judged on the difficulty of the trick they are performing and its execution.
Riders head down a course that has a range of large jumps and man-made objects.
Halfpipe: Athletes are judged on aerial manoeuvres executed as they go down an inclined pipe with near-vertical walls and smooth transitions, allowing participants to go several metres into the air.
Judges look at athletes' execution of tricks and the difficulty of the trick performed.
But despite this growth in popularity, there are still many people who do not know all the different disciplines found at the Winter Olympics, so to help you along, here is a guide of all the different alpine skiing and freestyle skiing events regularly held at the famous event.
Alpine Skiing Alpine skiing is the most popular sport with recreational skiers and has been a part of the Winter Olympics since 1936.
Alpine racing has now grown to include the slalom, giant slalom, Super-G, and downhill, as well as an event called the super combined.
The main variation between the events is the distance between the gates on the slope and the offset of the gates.
Here is a brief guide to each alpine skiing event.
Downhill: This is the fastest of all the alpine disciplines and courses are generally longer and include lots of jumps.
Super G: Similar to the Downhill, this discipline is made for speedsters, and racers have just one run down the slope, but in contrast to Downhill, this event focuses more on turns.
Slalom and Giant Slalom: Racers are allowed to have two runs down the track, with the times from both being combined.
Gates are closer together in the slalom and require participants to change directions quickly, whilst giant slalom courses are longer and more open but much faster.
Super Combined ski races: This includes a single slalom race and either a Super-G race or a shorter than normal downhill run.
Freestyle skiing Freestyle skiing includes a range of different activities.
The freestyle skiing events in the Winter Olympics are: The Ski Cross: This is an event where skiers go through a course featuring shaped objects such as banked turns and large jumps.
Freestyle Moguls: Skiers rapidly descend down a mogul field and are judged on their two aerial manoeuvres, speed and turns.
Freestyle Aerials: Participants take off from steep ramps and perform twisting tricks and somersaults and are judged on takeoff, jump form and landing, with the difficulty of the trick also being taken into account.
Slopestyle: Participants are judged on the difficulty of the trick they are performing and its execution.
Riders head down a course that has a range of large jumps and man-made objects.
Halfpipe: Athletes are judged on aerial manoeuvres executed as they go down an inclined pipe with near-vertical walls and smooth transitions, allowing participants to go several metres into the air.
Judges look at athletes' execution of tricks and the difficulty of the trick performed.
