Para alpine skiing words · Beginner

Alpine ski racing for athletes with a physical or a vision impairment, run by FIS. The events are downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super-G, parallel, alpine combined and team events, and athletes race in a vision impaired, standing or sitting category.

Athletes race as vision impaired, standing or sitting, and results, medals and cups are given by gender and category. The start order within a race is vision impaired first, then standing, then sitting, unless the jury changes it.

Athletes with a lower-limb or upper-limb impairment who ski on their feet, in sport classes LW1 to LW9. The class decides the equipment: for example two skis and two outriggers, one ski and two poles, two skis and one pole, or two skis and no poles.

Athletes with impaired trunk or leg function who ski in a sit-ski with two outriggers, in sport classes LW10 to LW12. LW10 has the least trunk function and LW12 the most.

Athletes with a vision impairment, in sport classes AS1 to AS4. They must ski with a guide.

The result of a para alpine race. A skier's net time, truncated to a hundredth of a second, is multiplied by the race factor of the sport class for the event, so that skiers with different impairments are ranked together. Ties go to the higher start number.

The sighted skier who guides a vision impaired athlete by voice, and who must pass through every gate. Guides must have a licence, be nationals of the same country, and have enough vision. The same sanctions apply to guide and competitor, and only one guide receives medals or prizes.

Any aid fitted to an athlete's needs to reduce the effect of an impairment, such as a sit-ski, outriggers, prostheses or blacked-out goggles. Glasses are not adaptive equipment. It must give no net advantage beyond functional equivalence, and the competitor is responsible for it.

A moulded seat on a frame, with a suspension under the seat, a boot-sole shaped block that clicks into the ski binding, and a braking device on each side. It may have a leg cover and can run on one ski (uni-ski) or two (dual-ski).

Arm crutches with ski tips attached, which can flip out so that the tip lifts and the crutch is used normally. Sitting skiers use two, and some standing classes use them in place of poles.