How to watch Alpine skiing slalom at the Winter Olympics: A guide to understanding and appreciating the sport

Alpine skiing is the core of Winter Olympics sports; one half of a foundation (along with figure skating) that every other modern, fresher event can be built off. There are many events to be found in alpine skiing’s varied basket, but the one you probably think of first when alpine skiing comes to mind is the slalom.

A technical feat each time a skier even finishes the course, slalom is “slow” compared to other alpine events but requires the utmost concentration, strength, and luck just to make it through. There are a million small things that can go wrong, so that when everything goes right and one athlete beats another by tenths or hundredths of a second it’s all the more incredible to process.

The United States has Mikaela Shiffrin and Resi Stiegler competing in the women’s events, and a trio of Nolan Kasper, David Chodounsky, and Mark Engel on the men’s side. Shiffrin is the standout, already a gold medal in her trophy case from the Sochi Olympics. Between then and now she’s only won more, gotten better on the slopes, and accomplished everything at a young age that you would anticipate a prodigy to accomplish by her early 20s.

Just because the other four athletes skiing for the U.S. aren’t favorites for the podium doesn’t mean they can’t pull off the upset and add some more hardware to the US’ slalom haul. Shiffrin is leading the way, but there’s chances for more than just her on the podium when all is said and done.

You can also live stream NBC, NBCSN, and the Olympic Channel coverage via Fubo.TV on your computer or mobile devices.

Because it involves a lot of top athletes going down a snowy (and mostly icy) hill as fast as they can and traveling between narrow gates with abandon. Even though they’re traveling “back and forth” between gates, skiers are basically going in a straight line and adjusting their bodies to situate themselves from gate to gate at upward of 60 miles an hour, which sounds awesome in theory and is even more amazing to watch happen in real time. Plus there are wipeouts every so often.

In slalom, skiers pass through gates made up of red and blue poles (no flags here). There are no big turns, which means it’s one of the slowest and most technical events, since there’s not as much time to pick up speed before adjusting for the next gate. Each skier makes two runs down the slope and both times are added together, then the fastest total time determines the winner. If a skier loses control and “skis out” and misses a gate, they are disqualified from the event. For the men’s event, there are 55 to 75 gates and for the women, there are between 40 and 60.

The weirdest rule of slalom is that the gates are sometimes purposely set up in complicated sequences. As the FIS alpine guidelines put it in rule 803.2:

A Slalom must contain horizontal (open) and vertical (closed) gates as well as a minimum of one and a maximum of three vertical combinations consisting of three to four gates and at least three hairpin-combinations. It must also contain a minimum of one and a maximum of three delay gate combinations.

Basically, make it difficult and switch things up on the skiers.

Learn how to pronounce Petra Vlhová, a member of the Slovakian ski team who is currently second in the World Cup standings and ready to tear it up in Pyeongchang. Or familiarize yourself with Austria’s Marcel Hirscher, who has 54 career World Cup wins. Or Henrik Kristoffersen, a Norwegian skier who is second in the current World Cup standings, became the youngest male slalom medalist ever with Olympic bronze in Sochi, and honestly just has a really cool name.

Shiffrin is only 22 and has already cemented herself at the top of the sport. She’s a beast, and if you don’t remember her from the last Winter Olympics, something tells us you won’t have the same issue after this year’s events.

What is the sport’s AMERICA RATING?

Slalom gets an INFINITE EAGLES America Rating, mostly because of Shiffrin. Born in the always-associated-with-skiing town of Vail, Colo, she is the reigning World Cup champion in alpine skiing. On top of that, she’s the reigning slalom champion at the Olympics and at the World Cup, is currently leading multiple World Cup categories, and has won slalom four times at the World Cup (and is at the top of the slalom standings currently). She’s the youngest female World Champion ever and with her 2014 gold medal, she became the youngest slalom gold medalist in Olympic history (of either gender) at only 18 years and 345 days old.

Shiffrin isn’t the US’s only hope, though. There’s Resi Stiegler, Nolan Kasper, David Chodounsky, and Mark Engel. They might not be the standouts that Shiffrin is, but they offer another shot to get on the podium for the United States.

What’s the best GIF I can watch from Slalom?

If you’ve never seen the GIF of a drone crashing incredibly close to then-defending World Champion Marcel Hirscher, you’re welcome. The FIS banned drone cameras after this, which is only logical.