Alpine ski

Abstract

Figure 4.1 shows that already in the prehistoric age (wall paintings and some antique finds strengthen this hypothesis) the use of skies existed, mainly to facilitate the mobility during hunt. During the centuries the skies were used for military and transportations in snow-covered areas, with some examples of reports about long distance travels across Europe in 1517 AD [1]. A description of ski techniques was published in 1765 AD in military manuals, while the first competitions were held in Norway in the mid-years of 1800, spreading in few years in the whole Scandinavian peninsula up to the Alps. The original disciplines (“Nordic”) were only the jumping and the cross-country ones, for this reason in a first time Alps were not considered suitable for skiing. Thus, skies were initially used in the Alps only to hike up the mountains and the descent was performed without skies. As time passed, a new downhill skiing technique, the “Alpine” one, was developed by skiers, ending up in the important teaching manual “Lilienfelder Skilauftechnik” by Mathias Zdarsky in 1896 AD (for further information about him, a really peculiar and capital personality in ski history, one can refer to [2]). Along the twentieth century, the ski experienced a lot of transformations and development: in 1922, in Mürren, the first alpine ski competition took place, then in 1924 the International Ski Federation (FIS) was established, and the ski was finally included among the Olympic disciplines in 1936. Important technological and coaching improvements took place along the whole century, and probably one of the most relevant was the introduction of carving skiesand binding plates in 1990s: higher inclination angles and tighter curves became possible, modifying significantly the appearance of the sport [3].