FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Disciplines: Giant Slalom
- Raúl Revuelta
- Sep 10
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 15
Since its inception in 1967, Giant Slalom has been an integral part of the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup. At the end of October, the 2025-2026 winter season kicks off with the traditional Women's and Men's Giant Slalom races on the Rettenbach Glacier in Soelden.
Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing competitive discipline that involves racing between sets of "gates" (a gate consists of two pairs of poles holding gate panels between them. Courses are marked with red and blue gates) spaced at a greater distance from each other than in Slalom but less than in Super-G. A Giant Slalom consists of a variety of long, medium, and short turns.
Giant slalom and slalom make up the technical events in alpine ski racing. This category separates them from the speed events of Super-G and downhill. The technical events are composed of two runs, held on different courses on the same ski run.
Giant slalom racers are faster than slalom racers because a giant slalom course has fewer gates, spaced further apart than in a slalom. This requires significantly fewer turns, allowing the racers to accelerate more. However, the course is longer than in a slalom.
The course is set by the coaches who are appointed by the coaches' working group. The terrain should preferably be undulating and hilly. The course should normally have a width of approximately 40 m.
The vertical drop for a GS course must be 250–450 m for Men, and 250–400 m for Women. At the Olympic Winter Games, FIS World Ski Championships, and FIS World Cup competitions, the number of gate judges will be determined by the Jury. The number of direction changes in a GS course equals 11–15% of the vertical drop of the course in metres.
Only the top 30 from the first run qualify for the second run. The start of the decisive run is in reverse order from the top 30 rankings of the first run. The so-called Bibbo rule (named after its "inventor", the Swede Bibbo Nordenskjöld) was not applied to the second run until the beginning of the 1971-1972 season, and is still in force today (with some modifications).
The times are added together, and the fastest total time determines the winner.
Skiers ranked 1st to 30th are awarded World Cup points in accordance with the following schedule:
The Giant Slalom discipline requires a perfect skiing technique. Standing well on the edges and perfectly carving the turns is the be-all and end-all for staying ahead.
According to the FIS Specification for Alpine Competition Equipment for the 2025–20256 season (valid from July 2025), the specifications for FIS World Cup GS skis are as follows: the minimum sidecut radius is 30 m (98 ft) for both men and women, and the minimum ski lengths are 188 cm (74 in) for women and 193 cm (75.9 in) for men.
The traditional venues for World Cup giant slaloms are Sölden with the Rettenbach Glacier racecourse in Austria; Val d'Isere with La Face in France; Adelboden with the Chuenisbärgli in Switzerland; Alta Badia with the Gran Risa course in Italy, and Kranjska Gora with the Podkoren racecourse in Slovenia.
In 1905, Mathias Zdarsky organized a slalom race in Lilienfeld called Wettfahren, whose course resembled a modern giant slalom. The gates were called Fahrmarken (track marks).
The first giant slalom was held in 1935 at Mottarone, Italy, on Lake Maggiore, near Stresa, on January 20. A month later, the second giant slalom was held at Marmolada, in the Italian Dolomites.
The FIS first introduced the giant slalom as a fourth discipline alongside downhill, slalom, and combined at the 1950 World Championships in Aspen.
Giant Slalom debuted at the Olympic Winter Games in 1952 in Oslo, Norway. The discipline has been run in every world championship and Olympics since.
While slaloms have always been run in two runs, this has generally only been the case for giant slaloms since the 1966 World Championships and the start of the World Cup in January 1967 (men), and since the 1977-1978 winter season (women).
In the early days, Men's giant slaloms with two runs, both in the World Cup and at the Olympic Games, were held on two consecutive days.
The world championships changed to a one-day format for the giant slalom at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships held in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1974, but the Olympics continued the GS as a two-day event until 1988. Following the extra races added to the program in Calgary 1988, the GS was scheduled as a one-day event at the Olympic Winter Games.
In Women's giant slalom, the most successful skier in the Alpine Ski World Cup is Vreni Schneider, who has won the GS Crystal Globe four times. She is followed by Viktoria Rebensburg, Lise-Marie Morerod, Anja Pärson, and Annemarie Pröll, each of whom has secured three Giant Slalom titles. On March 19, 2023, Mikaela Shiffrin won the Giant Slalom in Soldeu and broke Vreni Schneider’s record of 20 Giant Slalom victories. On December 28, 2023, the US Ski Ace claimed her 22nd win in the Giant Slalom in Lienz, Austria.
In the Men's Giant Slalom, Ingemar Stenmark (46 wins, 72 podiums) leads the discipline rankings with eight GS Crystal Globes, followed by Marcel Hirscher with six and Ted Ligety with five.
Last season, Federica Brignone claimed her second career Giant Slalom Crystal Globe. She previously won the Giant Slalom Globe in 2020. Alice Robinson (520), along with Sara Hector (447), took second and third place in the discipline's rankings.
Brignone, with five wins (Sölden, Semmering, Sestriere I and II, and Are) and a gold medal in the Alpine World Ski Championships in Saalbach, was crowned the best Giant Slalom skier of the 2024-2025 Alpine Ski World Cup winter season.
In 2025, Marco Odermatt won the Giant Slalom Alpine Ski World Cup Crystal Globe for the fourth consecutive time. Despite an erratic start to the season, with two DNFs, he was again the absolute dominator of the discipline. Henrik Kristoffersen and Loic Meillard placed second and third in the standings for the discipline.
Odermatt competed in nine Men's Giant Slalom World Cup events last season and finished on the podium in seven, including three wins in Val d'Isere, Alta Badia, and Adelboden.
In the 37 Giant Slalom World Cup races Odermatt has competed in since the start of the 2021-2022 season, the Swiss skier has won 24. Only Marcel Hirscher (31 wins) and Stenmark (46 wins) are in front of him on the all-time Men’s Giant Slalom win list.