Alpine skiing events have been a part of the Paralympic winter games since 1976. The Paralympics is very similar to the Olympic Games in that the athletes compete in many of the same disciplines and compete for their countries.

As a part of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics the 2010 Paralympics will be held from March 12 – 21st, 2010. All of the paralympic events will be held on many of the same venues as the Olympic events. The Alpine skiing portion of the 2010 Paralympics will feature downhill, super g, giant slalom, slalom and the super combined.

Alpine ski racing for the disabled has been held since the late 1940’s, however, these events were limited to athletes that were able to stand or had some sort of vision impairment. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the invention of the mono-ski (a single seat mounted on a single ski) was discovered and opened the door to athletes that were unable to stand up and ski. The slalom and giant slalom events were first held in the Paralympics during the 1976 Winter Olympics in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden. The downhill event became a part of the Paralympics in 1984 and the super g was added to the games in 1994. The mono-skiing event became an official medal discipline in 1998 during the Nagano, Japan Paralympics.

In the downhill event the course is longer than any of the other alpine skiing races in the Paralympics. Each individual racer will make one run down the course with the fastest time winning the event.

The super g Paralympics event features the speed of downhill with the awesome turning skill of the giant slalom; again, each racer will make one run down the course with the fastest time determining the overall winner of the event.

In giant slalom the racers will make less turns than in slalom but they will be wider and smoother than in the case of the slalom. In this event, the Paralympics athletes will make two runs down two separate courses. Both of the runs will take place on the same day. For this event, the times will be added together with the fastest combined time being the winner.

The slalom race in Paralympics will be the shortest of all the courses but will call for sharpest turns. As in the giant slalom, the racers will make two runs down two separate courses in the same day again with the fastest total combined time determining the winner.

For the Paralympics the super combined involves one downhill run and two slalom runs. The slalom runs take place on a shorter course for this particular discipline. All three times will be added together and the fastest combined time of the three runs will determine your winner.

Here is a closer look at the events that will be contested during the 2010 Paralympics Winter Games in Vancouver:

The venue for the Alpine Skiing disciplines during the 2010 Paralympics will be a short, scenic two hour drive from downtown Vancouver to Whistler. The Whistler Creekside venue has a capacity of 6,000 for the Paralympic events. The races in the alpine disciplines will take place on Franz’s Run, which is on Whistler Mountain. Upgrades to the current venue started in the summer of 2006 and were completed by the late fall of 2007. All of the improvements to this venue for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics as well as the Vancouver 2010 Paralympics came in at an estimated $27.6 million and the governments of Canada and British Columbia came to an agreement to fund the project in a joint effort. Here is a closer look at VANOC’s (Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Committee) sustainable attributes report for this particular venue;

Make sure you come out and support all of the world’s Paralympic athletes in March 2010, it is sure to be a fantastic show of sportsmanship, heart, hard work and determination. See you there!