A Complete Guide to the Alpine Skiing Events You'll See at the 2022 Winter Olympics

Downhill is one of the marquee events of alpine skiing, and it’s where skiers clock the fastest times, reaching speeds of about 80 to 100 mph. In this discipline, athletes race downhill while maneuvering gates, risers (or small hills), and the course’s terrain. Risers can help increase an athlete’s speed. However, jumps can also go terribly wrong if a skier falls out of their tucked position and loses their balance. Unlike other alpine skiing events, athletes are allowed trial runs before their official start.

For slalom skiers, it’s all about technicality. The course, which is the shortest in alpine skiing, requires athletes to weave in and out of closely placed gates, while also executing high-speed turns and swift changes in direction. It’s common for slalom skiers to reach speeds of up to 43 mph during competition. The event has a unique structure, where athletes compete in two rounds on the same day, but on different courses. The winner is determined by whoever has the fastest cumulative time.

While giant slalom follows the same competition structure as slalom, its course is more spaced out, which means fewer and wider, smoother turns. Olympic skiers can break 50 mph while flying through a giant slalom course, making it the fastest of the three technical events in alpine skiing.

Take the momentum of downhill and pair it with the quick changes of direction in giant slalom, and you’ve got super giant slalom, commonly referred to as super-G. In this speed discipline, the course isn’t as steep as the downhill, but the gates are closer together. Skiers only get one shot to ski the fastest time possible, and – yikes! – they’re not allowed a warmup. Instead of a practice run, athletes and their coaches get 90 minutes to analyze the course and mentally prepare for the race.

Only competed on the Olympic stage, the combined attracts the crème de la crème of alpine skiers. The single-day event is compromised of two different disciplines, one that focuses on speed and one that challenges technicality: typically downhill and slalom, though downhill can be replaced with super-G. Each skier gets one run on both courses, and at the very end, the man and woman with the fastest combined times are awarded gold.

After making its Olympic debut in 2018, mixed team parallel slalom became a favorite among fans, because who doesn’t love a relay? For this event, each country enters one team consisting of two men and two women. From there, teams race each other in groups of two on identical courses situated on the same slope. The fastest athlete in each duel earns a point for their team, and the team with the most points advances to the next round. If there’s a tie, the winner is determined by the team with the fastest cumulative time.