Alpine Skiing Essentials - Giant Slalom
Last Updated: Friday, December 4, 2009 | 12:22 PM ET
CBC Sports
Canada's Robbie Dixon competes in men's giant slalom during the opening of FIS Alpine Skiing World cup in Soelden, Austria in October. (Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images) Every so often, a technological innovation revolutionizes a sport. This happened in 1990 when alpine skiers began to use parabolic-shaped skis with increased sidecut. Today, every competitive giant slalom racer has converted to the high-performance, easier-to-use skis.
Wider tips and tails, a more curvaceous look, and increased sidecut -the side contour that runs from tip to tail of the ski - are the more obvious differences between parabolic skis and older, straighter models. The look is different, but the real significance is improved racer performance.
The equipment is easier to ski on and produces better results than equipment from a decade ago, according to Canadian Olympian Thomas Grandi.
"Skis used to be quite straight, and you'd really have to muscle them around to get them around corners," says Grandi. "Now all of a sudden they have shape to them, so by just rolling them up on their edge, they turn automatically. That was the biggest technological advancement in ski racing for a long, long time."
Racers have realized skis with more sidecut are easier to control at high speeds and have a natural tendency to want to turn, allowing them to go faster while reducing the risk of catching an edge. This has paved the way for a switch in giant slalom technique.
"There isn't any longer a sliding portion of a turn," says CBC analyst Kerrin Lee-Gartner, the 1992 Olympic downhill champion. "It's all carving, and it's all power, and the ski has the ability to do the radius of a GS and slalom turn."
The new giant slalom racer
Shaped skis have opened the GS starting gates to more traditional speed racers. Athletes who once excelled exclusively in downhill and super-G are now posting strong GS results. The gap between technical and speed racing is narrowing.
"What the shaped ski has done, it's made the skiers now ski all disciplines," says Lee-Gartner. "There are downhillers who started out as GS skiers, but because of the way they skied a GS turn, they realized, 'Oh, I can do downhill now because it's actually the same turn. It's just bigger.' And so now we have a lot of overlap."
Rhythm is key in a timed sport with repetitive actions, such as the frequent turns in giant slalom. Skiers want to avoid any sharp maneuvers that restrict the fluidity of their motion and directness of their path. Many variables can send a skier out of sync, piling crucial hundredths of a second to their times.
"If you want to make a good, clean turn, you have to get your skis way out from underneath your body," says Grandi. "The chance of falling on your side is there, and it happens, and you can fall on your side and get up and keep going, but it's going to cost you time, and you're going to lose your rhythm."
Once GS racers lose their rhythm, they must try to regain their speed and get back into the zone.
Another common rhythm-breaker occurs when athletes hook their arms or ski tips on gates by cutting their turns too close. Excessive gate contact can also do worse than break a racer's rhythm: it can force a skier to lose a pole or go tumbling down the mountain.
Event organization
Giant slalom races are contested in two heats on two separate courses. The winner is the racer who successfully finishes both courses with the lowest combined time.
There are usually about 50 sets of gates, but the exact number depends on the elevation and vertical drop of the selected terrain. The distance between gates is shorter than in downhill and super-G, so ski control and fluid directional changes are important on GS courses. The gates are between four and eight metres wide and are set at least 10m apart down the run.
Two representatives from competing GS countries, usually coaches, set the two Olympic GS runs. The nationality of the course-setters is chosen by a random draw of countries with GS racers in the top-15 of the World Cup Start List (WCSL) points. The final step is approval by the Chief Race Director.
The start order for the opening heat is determined by a random draw using the complex giant slalom WCSL rankings system. The top seven skiers are randomly assigned the first seven bib numbers, and racers eight through 15 are given the next eight spots by draw.
Skiers with more than 400 WCSL points are allowed to choose start positions in the 16-30 range, and the remaining racers are arranged by International Ski Federation (FIS) points earned on the World Cup giant slalom circuit.
Every skier who finishes the first run is allowed to compete in the second run, unlike at World Cup events where only the top 30 skiers advance to the next round
