While the Scandinavians had been 
skiing for centuries, it wasn't until 
the late 1800s that an eccentric 
Austrian named Mathias Zdarsky 
realized that what worked up North
 just wouldn't do on steep Alpine 
terrains.  In a book he wrote in 
1896, Zdarsky made the first 
serious attempt to work out a 
technique for downhill skiing.  But it
 took an English Methodist 
missionary, Henry Lunn, to develop
 the sport of downhill racing.  

Olympic Alpine skiing consists of 
downhill racing, where the object is
 to tear down a precipitous course 
as fast as possible, achieving 
speeds of more than 65 mph; 
slalom, where skiers follow a 
steep, twisting course defined by 
pairs of flags called gates; and 
giant slalom, which is a controlled 
downhill race, combining elements 
of slalom and downhill skiing.  

Alpine skiing was not introduced in 
the Winter Olympics until 1936.  Not
 surprisingly, the Alpine nations -- 
Switzerland, Austria, Germany, 
Italy, France -- have dominated the 
 events,  but the Americans and 
Canadians have also had some 
great successes.  American 
Andrea Mead Laurence captured 
double gold in the Slalom and Giant 
Slalom in 1952, a feat no other 
American skier has accomplished, 
and the twin brothers Phil and 
Steve Mahre brought home Gold 
and Silver in the 1984 slalom event. 

Without question, the most famous, 
or infamous skier of recent years 
has been Italy's Alberto Tomba, 
who skied to Gold in the slalom and
 giant slalom in 1988, and then won
 the giant slalom again in 1992, the 
first Olympic downhiller to take two
 consecutive Golds in the same 
event.  He also won Silvers in the 
slalom in 1992 and 1994, where 
with a heroic second run after 
faltering on the first, he almost 
brought home another gold.  As 
famous for his off-the-slopes 
lifestyle as for his reckless skiing, 
Tomba "La Bomba" has amassed 
three Golds and two Silvers over 
three Olympics.