Slalom Skiing Was Invented by a British Mountaineer in 1922

On January 21, 1922, Arnold Lunn planted a series of flags into the slope above Murren, a car-free village in the Bernese Oberland, and ran the first race he called a "slalom" — a word borrowed from the Norwegian slalam, meaning a trail down a slope. Competitors had to pass through gates defined by pairs of poles, turning left and right in sequence, with the course designed to test turning ability rather than pure speed.

Lunn had already organized the first modern downhill ski race in 1911 — the Roberts of Kandahar Challenge Cup at Montana in the Swiss Alps — and he was convinced that turning skill, not simply gravity, should determine a skiing champion. The slalom format he invented formalized that argument.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) recognized the slalom as an official discipline in 1930 and held the first combined World Championship — slalom and downhill — that year at Murren. But the International Olympic Committee was resistant: skiing was seen as a Nordic pursuit governed by Scandinavian cross-country and jumping traditions, and the Alpine events that Lunn promoted were associated with wealthy British and central European tourists at mountain resorts.

Alpine skiing finally appeared at the 1936 Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen — an event that combined the downhill and slalom — over Norwegian and Swedish objections. Lunn was knighted in 1952. The FIS Alpine World Championships still include the Kandahar name in the combined Super G race.