Downhill

The downhill is an alpine skiing discipline. The rules for the downhill were originally developed by Sir Arnold Lunn for the 1921 British National Ski Championships.

Races

In all forms of downhill, both at a local youth-level as well as the higher FIS international level, racers are allowed extensive preparation for the race, which includes daily course inspection and discussion with their coaches and teammates as well as several practice runs before the actual race. Racers do not make any unnecessary turns while on the course, and try and do everything they can to maintain the most aerodynamic position while negotiating turns and jumps.

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Unlike slalom and giant slalom, where racers have two combined times, in the downhill, the race is a single "run." Times are typically between 1:50:00 seconds and 2:50:00 seconds for the most challenging courses. Tenths and hundreths of seconds count: World Cup races and Olympic medals have sometimes been decided by as little as two or three one-hundreths of a second.

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