Erin Mielzynski of Canada skis her second runat the Women's FIS Alpine World Cup in Aspen, Colorado in November. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images) Slalom is the most demanding of alpine disciplines, requiring phenomenal agility — athletes on short skis, wearing protective body armour, ripping through a series of quick, precision turns while whacking plastic poles out of their path.
Open and closed gates, flushes and hairpins
Slalom courses are the shortest of the four alpine events. The slalom is contested in two consecutive runs over the same slope but following different courses. The winner is the skier who successfully navigates both courses in the lowest combined time.
There are different types of gate patterns, such as flushes (three or four vertical gates) and hairpins (two vertical gates). The skier must avoid at all costs the dreaded "forking" of a slalom pole, when both skis do not pass on the same side of the pole.
There is no penalty for knocking down a gate as long as the skier's ski tips cross the line between the slalom poles. Skiers who miss a gate must climb back up and go through it or face disqualification. Each set of gates is assigned an official gatekeeper who is responsible for ensuring each skier passes through correctly.
Official slalom courses have between 55 and 75 gates for men and 45 to 65 for women. Each gate alternates between red and blue so skiers can distinguish the two at high speeds.
Styles of slalom courses
The Olympic slalom courses are set by two different representatives from competing nations, usually coaches. The course-setter is determined by a draw among countries with racers in the world's top-15 slalom rankings, after confirming with the Chief Race Director.
“Sometimes it can be a great advantage if your coach gets to set at the Olympics because you've been training that course all year long — on different slopes," says 1992 Olympic alpine skiing champion and CBC analyst Kerrin Lee-Gartner.
"You've been training his little tricks and his little idiosyncrasies that he does on a course and other racers haven't had that. So you'll be very comfortable with the setting. You'll be very comfortable with the radius of the turn and the offset of the gate."
Different coaches set different types of runs. Some prefer a straight, fast slalom that demands quickness and agility. Other course-setters prefer a hard-working run with a lot of back and forth movement across the hill.
There are no training runs in slalom. Skiers learn about the course through a race-morning inspection in which they slowly move through the course, analyzing gate patterns and finding the most direct line down the course.
Some racers try to stash the entire course in their memories so they can ski it on autopilot, while others prefer to concentrate more on remembering the trickier gate patterns, according to Lee-Gartner.
The shift to smaller, shaped skis
The most dramatic change in slalom over the past 10 to 15 years has come in ski size.
"Slalom skis are absurdly short compared to the old-fashioned slalom skis," says Lee-Gartner. "We don't have the big boards out there anymore."
More than a decade ago, men used 200 centimetre-long skis, while women's skis were in the 190cm range. Today the men are on 165cm skis, while the women are down to 155cm.
Current slalom skis, like the equipment used in other alpine disciplines, are more contoured. The visible differences are wider tips and tails, and a more curvaceous look with a more defined sidecut.
Previously, racers worked the tail of the ski, meaning they would go into a turn with all the pressure at the front of the ski, work through the middle of the turn where all the pressure is, and then try squeezing out more speed by applying pressure to the back of the skis.
This isn't the case anymore. Slalom skiers no longer need to "work" the tail of their skis and pivot into a turn. The sidecut on the new slalom skis has created the biggest technique change of all the ski disciplines, allowing for smoother, cleaner, and quicker turns.
"The skis have come so far that the racers are able to carve 90 per cent of the turns on a course. It never used to be that way," explains Lee-Gartner.
The carved turns and short skis have changed the line of slalom. Racers now ski much straighter through the gates than in the past. A drawback to the shorter skis is reduced stability. Smaller skis are more maneuverable, but also more unpredictable.
A difficult balancing act
Slalom skiers must remain upright, with their centre of mass directly over the middle of the skis. If they shift more weight on top of the tip or tail of the skis, they become more vulnerable to having their skis slip out from under them.
Reduced ski size and the series of sharp, quick turns in slalom make it vital for athletes to race upright, unlike the more aerodynamic, crouched positions of the speed events.
"Balance is very key in the slalom," Lee-Gartner says. "You need to maintain balance, core strength, stomach and back muscles."
A stable, upright position is also important in slalom because racers come so close to the gates; they actually hit them on their shin or boots when they ski through. The need for balance outweighs aerodynamics.
"The racers are so close to the gate that it's hitting them on their shin or on their boots when they ski through the gates," says Lee-Gartner. "So they have to be upright. The last thing you'd want to be is in any sort of a low position when you hit with that pole."
Body armour: shin guards and chin guards
Slalom equipment is different from all other alpine disciplines. Racers wear protective padding, or body armour, to soften the blow of hitting multiple hard plastic gates.
"It hurts to hit those poles," says Lee-Gartner. "I know on television it doesn't look like it hurts when those little tiny poles get skied through, but it does. They're hard plastic and if you hit on a spot that doesn't have padding on a regular basis, you'll get really bad bruises."
Slalom helmets have chin guards to prevent the plastic gates from hitting skiers in the face. Skiers wear shin guards that run from their boot to above their knee, and have pole guards with shell-like grips protecting their hands. The equipment also helps skiers push the poles out of their way.
Skiers don't go out of their way to knock down the gates, but if they are in the way of their line, they won't hesitate to do so.
"They try and remove the gate out of the way so then they can ski through on a nice smooth line," says Lee-Gartner. "The last thing you want to be doing is hitting the gates so much that you're disrupting your ski performance and what your skis are doing."
