Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024: How to watch alpine skiing at the 2024 YOG
Want all the details about alpine skiing at the next Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024? Discover the schedule and all the top facts you need to know here.
Alpine Skiing
We're just over a year away from the fourth Winter Youth Olympic Games and the first to be held in Asia: Gangwon 2024.
The South Korean province, which also hosted the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, welcomes the world's best young athletes in January 2024.
Every winter Olympic sport, including alpine skiing, is on the programme. Discover all the essentials you need to know about alpine skiing at Gangwon 2024 as we begin the countdown towards the Opening Ceremony on 19 January 2024.
Alpine skiing at Gangwon 2024: Schedule and venue
Several PyeongChang 2018 venues will be re-used for Gangwon 2024.
The Jeongseon Alpine Centre, which hosted alpine skiing's speed races during PyeongChang 2018 and saw Sofia Goggia and Aksel Lund Svindal win Olympic gold, will be repurposed for Gangwon 2024.
While the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024 are set to take place from 19 January–1 February 2024, specific dates have not yet been set for the alpine skiing competition.
Alpine skiing at Gangwon 2024: Events and format
There are nine alpine skiing events at Gangwon 2024:
- Men's Super-G
- Men's Giant slalom
- Men's Slalom
- Men's Alpine Combined
- Women's Super-G
- Women's Giant slalom
- Women's Slalom
- Women's Alpine Combined
- Mixed Team Parallel
The Slalom sees skiers race down two different courses, with their times combined for an overall score. This discipline requires quick turns through gates – alternating between pairs of red and blue poles – which are placed closely together.
In the Giant Slalom, skiers race between sets of gates set further apart than in the Slalom. It follows a similar format with the times combined from two runs.
The Super G increases the distance between the gates, making it the fastest of the three events as there are fewer sharp turns. Unlike the other two disciplines, however, Super G consists of one single run.
The Alpine Combined tests both technique and speed as it consists of two runs – Super G and Slalom. The times are combined for an overall total, with Super G traditionally the first race.The Parallel Mixed Team Event is all about head-to-head racing between nations (one male and one female per team), as skiers slalom around gates with the aim of crossing the finish line before their opponent.
Athletes competing in alpine skiing at Gangwon 2024 must be born between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2007, making athletes between 17 and 18 years old.
How to qualify for alpine skiing at Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games
There are a total of 160 spots available for alpine skiing at Gangwon 2024, with 80 for men and 80 for women.
The maximum number of athletes per NOC is six: three men and three women. Host country Republic of Korea is automatically allocated a three male and three female berths.
YOG FIS points are earned in accordance with the FIS rules for FIS poins during the YOG qualification period from 1 July 2022 to 17 December 2023.
The 24 quota places for each gender will be assigned during the FIS Junior Alpine World Ski Championships 2023 in St. Anton, Austria, which will be held from 17 to 25 January 2023.
The top seven (or eight if host South Korea is ranked in the top eight) NOCs in the Marc Hodler Trophy standings will be automatically awarded three male and three female berths.
The next three (or two) ranked NOCs in the Marc Hodler Trophy standings will be allocated two male and two female berths.
The remaining 52 spots will be distributed amongst the NOCs not yet qualified, according to their ranking on the men's and women's YOG quota allocation lists published on 18 December 2023.
For more details you can check here.
Winter Youth Olympic Games alpine skiing – previous stars
The most successful Winter Youth Olympic Games champion in alpine skiing is Petra Vlhova, who won slalom gold in the women's race at Innsbruck 2012.
In Austria the Slovak started a remarkable career that saw her win every possible title in her sport, including six medals at the World Championships (with a gold in giant slalom in 2019), her country's first overall World Cup title in 2021 and the Olympic crown in slalom at Beijing 2022.
Marco Schwarz won three gold medals at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games: the Austrian went on to claim an Olympic silver medal in the team event at PyeongChang 2018 and five medals over the last two World Championships, including a gold in combined at Cortina 2021. The 27-year-old has also collected a slalom small globe and finished third in the overall standings at the end of the 2021 season.
American River Radamus was the hero of the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, where he grabbed three individual golds.
Three years later in Val di Fassa, Italy, the Colorado native became a two-time junior world champion and more recently at his Olympic debut in Beijing he missed a medal in the giant slalom event by less than three tenths of a second.
One of the stars who shone in Lillehammer was also Aline Danioth, who won two golds and two bronzes: in 2019 the 24-year-old became world champion of the team event with Switzerland in Are, Sweden.
Slovenia's Meta Hrovat was slalom medallist in 2016 and collected four World Cup podiums from 2018 to 2021 before retiring from the sport in October 2022 aged 24.
Who will announce themselves as the next star of the future at Gangwon 2024?