Leading the group of top male skiers in the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is Marcel Hirscher, a record-holder with eight Overall Crystal Globes. Ingemar Stenmark held the record for the greatest number of 86 World Cup wins. Marco Odermatt, Alexis Pinturault, along with Aleksander Aadmot Kilde and Hirscher, round out the group of active skiers in this elite selection.

The 2025–2026 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Slalom season will begin with Women's and Men's races on the 'Levi Black' slope in Levi, Finland, on 15–16 November. Slalom is the oldest and most technically demanding competition in Alpine Skiing.

The Games were the first to be held in a different year from the Summer Olympics, the first and only one to be held two years after the previous Winter Games, and the most recent to be held in a small town. The Games were the second Winter Games hosted in Norway, after the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo.

Petra Kronberger of Austria led the individual medal table with two gold medals in Slalom and the Alpine Combined, while Alberto Tomba of Italy was the most successful male skier with two medals, one gold in Giant Slalom and one silver in the Slalom.

The Alpine Skiing Olympic Winter Games program was expanded in Calgary 1988 from three to five events with the inclusion of the Super-G and the return of the Alpine combined.