Olympic Alpine Skiing 2018: Complete Guide to Pyeongchang Winter Games

The 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics will hand out just over 100 gold medals to individuals and teams. More than 10 percent of those will go to champions in Alpine skiing, one of the premier sports of the Winter Games.

Alpine skiing has been part of the Winter Games since 1936. This time around, there will be 11 Alpine events with the addition of a mixed team event, one of the last competitions of the Games.

Austria has been the dominant country in this discipline, with 34 golds and 114 total medals, including three golds among its nine Alpine medals at the 2014 Sochi Games.

The United States has the fourth-most Alpine golds (16) and fourth-most overall medals (44). Four years ago, the U.S. earned five total medals, with Ted Ligety winning gold in the men's giant slalom and Mikaela Shiffrin winning the women's slalom.

Follow along as we break down each event and also give you a heads-up on the top athletes in South Korea.

Marcel Hirscher, Austria

Hirscher is the top men's skier in the world based on his gold medals in the slalom and giant slalom at the 2017 world championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The 28-year-old only has one Olympic medal, though, earning silver in the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Games.

         

Wendy Holdener, Switzerland

Holdener claimed a gold (combined) and silver (slalom) at the 2017 world championships and followed that up with a first place in the combined in one of the final World Cup events before Pyeongchang. The 24-year-old is one of several Swiss skiers who should contend for medals this month.

          

Ted Ligety, United States

Ligety is competing in his fourth Olympics, having gold in the combined at Turin in 2006 and the giant slalom four years ago in Sochi. The 33-year-old is a five-time World Cup champion, though a back injury that required surgery has limited him recently.

Ligety is scheduled to enter the giant slalom, super-G and combined events.

              

Mikaela Shiffrin, United States

Shiffrin is the reigning Olympic and three-time reigning world champion in the slalom, having won gold in Sochi as well as at the 2013, 2015 and 2017 worlds. Her performance at the 2014 Winter Games came when she was 18, the youngest ever to win that event.

Now 22, the world's best all-around skier intends to compete in five individual events. She's started to put more effort into speed races that helped her win the overall World Cup title in 2017.

         

Lindsey Vonn, United States

Vonn won gold in the downhill and bronze in the super-G at Vancouver in 2010, but since then her career has taken many twists and turns. Knee injuries kept her from competing in Sochi in 2014, and in late 2016 she suffered a broken arm.

At 33, she's giving it one last go, telling Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden, "I have the same mental approach that I had when I was 18." She is scheduled to compete in the downhill, super-G and combined events.

               

Andrew Weibrecht, United States

Weibrecht will turn 32 during the first weekend of the Pyeongchang Games. He is looking to win a medal in a third consecutive Olympics after earning bronze in the super-G in Vancouver in 2010 and silver in the same event four years ago.

Weibrecht is best on the Olympic stage, having never finished better than ninth in any world championship race.

When: Sunday, Feb. 11 (men); Wednesday, Feb. 21 (women)

Defending Olympic Champions: Matthias Mayer, Austria (men); Dominique Gisin, Switzerland, and Tina Maze, Slovenia (women)

Defending World Champions: Beat Feuz, Switzerland (men); Ilka Stuhec, Slovenia (women)

The downhill is the most basic of the Alpine events, one where skiers try to get from the top of the course to the bottom as quickly as possible without having to deal with any obstacles.

At the Pyeongchang Games, the men's course is 1.77 miles with a 2,707-foot vertical drop, while the women's course is 1.55 miles and drops 2,395 feet.

When: Thursday, Feb. 22 (men); Wednesday, Feb. 14 (women)

Defending Olympic Champions: Mario Matt, Austria (men); Mikaela Shiffrin, United States (women)

Defending World Champions: Marcel Hirscher, Austria (men); Mikaela Shiffrin, United States (women)

Slalom is a technical event that requires precision on turns to navigate a winding course downhill. Skiers must stay between poles, with the object being to wrap around them as closely as possible to cut down on time.

It's the shortest race distance-wise, with the Pyeongchang course 0.357 miles for men and 0.345 miles for women.

When: Sunday, Feb. 18 (men); Monday, Feb. 12 (women)

Defending Olympic Champions: Ted Ligety, United States (men); Tina Maze, Slovenia (women)

Defending World Champions: Marcel Hirscher, Austria (men); Tessa Worley, France (women)

Take the slalom and more than double the course. It's 0.824 miles for men and 0.777 miles for women in Pyeongchang.

Add many more poles to ski around and a steeper drop—more than 1,300 feet on each course compared to under 700 feet for the slalom—and you have a longer and tougher endeavor.

When: Thursday, Feb. 15 (men); Saturday, Feb. 17 (women)

Defending Olympic Champions: Kjetil Jansrud, Norway (men); Anna Fenninger, Austria (women)

Defending World Champions: Erik Guay, Canada (men); Nicole Schmidhofer, Austria (women)

The super-G is what happens when a mad scientist mixes the toughest downhill course with slalom race properties. The slalom poles aren't nearly as tightly grouped as in a standard slalom race, though, and skiers are able to double back if they miss a gate.

In Pyeongchang, this race will be held on the same course as the downhill, just from a lower start, going 1.378 miles for men and 1.232 miles for women.

When: Tuesday, Feb. 13 (men); Friday, Feb. 23 (women)

Defending Olympic Champions: Sandro Viletta, Switzerland (men); Maria Hofl-Riesch, Germany (women)

Defending World Champions: Luca Aerni, Switzerland (men); Wendy Holdener, Switzerland (women)

While the super-G combines downhill and slalom into one race, the super combined has competitors do one race of each, and their times are combined to determine the standings.

Downhill comes first, and only skiers who complete that course get to do the slalom. Both races are on different, shorter courses than the normal downhill and slalom events.

When: Saturday, Feb. 24

Defending World Champions: France

The newest Olympic Alpine competition will wrap up the action on the slopes, with teams of four skiers (two men, two women) battling in head-to-head slalom races.

It's a bracketed, single-elimination event with four total races, each worth a point, and the team with the most points moves on to the next round. If there's a tie, the winner is determined by the combined times of a team's fastest man and woman.

           

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter: @realBJP.