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

There is no sport that captures the speed, danger, and excitement of the downhill Alpine skiing event at the Winter Olympics. On Saturday, Feb. 10, the top skiers in the world will help kick off the Olympics with one of the games’ most breathtaking events.

Downhill skiing is the purest distillation of the sport — a race that drops more than half a mile in elevation where men and women compete against the mountain, the stopwatch, and themselves. The fastest competitor takes home the gold in one of Pyeongchang’s simplest competitions.

The men’s race has been one of the games’ most competitive events in the past eight years. In both 2010 and 2014, the top three racers were all separated by one-tenth of a second or less. No one has ever won gold in the event more than once.

But the women’s side provides much more intrigue. Lindsey Vonn is back for America after missing the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, due to injury. She’ll look to reclaim her 2010 title in the event after winning three straight downhill races on the World Cup circuit leading up to the women’s race on Feb. 20.

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

Downhill is pure excitement and little bureaucracy. Here’s a path down a mountain -- get to the bottom as quickly as possible.

Are there jumps? Hell yes there are jumps. Crazy turns? Well, not as crazy as in the slalom events, but yes. Are people going to crash and send chunks of broken skis into low-earth orbit at 85 miles an hour? MAYBE.

And with just one shot at climbing the podium, every racer on the mountain is going to bust their ass to get there, taking every risk to achieve the sport’s ultimate goal. There is no event that combines risk and urgency quite like the downhill.

It’s the simplest race on the mountain. While events like the slalom and giant slalom take the combined time from two races to declare a champion, downhill skiers get one official shot at the mountain — though they have three days of practice runs leading up to the event and have to log at least one official timed training run before the big day. Racers have to stay on a preplanned course and pass through staged gates on their way down the mountain — missing one means disqualification.

The weirdest rule? The mountain has to be extremely scary. For men, the course must drop between 800 and 1,100 meters for World Cup events — more than half a mile. The expectation is less for women — from 450 to 800 meters.

As cool as the jumps on the course are, racers want to keep their skis on the snow as much as possible to gain speed and increase control. Efficient speed is gained by carving through snow, not skidding. Gravity is the thing that makes you go fast.

Vonn’s combination of speed and strength made her one of America’s most popular Olympians in 2010. She’s got plenty to prove coming in to this year’s event and tremendous momentum after winning her last three World Cup events. With 2014 co-winners Tina Maze and Dominique Gisin retired, the safe money is on a Vonn victory. Maybe get on that bandwagon early.

On the men’s side, the event is impressively unpredictable. In the last four Olympics, 12 different skiers have taken the medal stand — proving the volatility of a sport where the world’s best athletes are separated by a fraction of a second. In 2014, Austrian Matthias Mayer took the gold. He’s still only 27 years old, and he’ll be bigger and stronger as he attempts to become the first male skier to ever repeat atop the podium in the downhill event.

Well, it’s skiing, which is a time-honored pastime for upper middle-class families in the northeast and across the Rocky Mountains. But it’s also like hockey or lacrosse, where you need a lot of money, time, and equipment to participate. So it’s kind of self-segregating, which makes it pretty damn American despite its European roots.

Two of America’s most well-known athletes will compete in the event. Ted Ligety has won a pair of Olympic gold medals, but is better known for his slalom mastery than his straightaway speed. Vonn won gold in the downhill event in Vancouver, and 2018 may be her last chance to prove she ha overcome the torn ACL that prevented her from competing in Sochi.

America rating: Four bald eagles (out of five)