Informative Essay On Skiing

There are many types of skiing, but the one I want to focus on in this first paragraph is alpine. The word alpine comes from a place in Europe called The Alps. This is where alpine skiing was created, at around the 1800’s. Alpine skiing sometimes consists of gates, or it can be just skiing around for fun. Other types of skiing are freestyle, nordic and cross-country. Even though alpine skiing is what I love to do, it isn’t the only thing important to skiing’s history.
The first primitive ski dates back to around 6000 B.C.E. making it a pretty old sport. The only way people know about how old skiing is, is from paintings, and old skis that they found. Many skis have been found in glaciers, including one found in 2014 complete with leather bindings.
This ski was used around 1300 years ago. It is 172 cm long, and 14.5 cm wide. This is pretty surprising considering that most skis back then were around 250-300 cm.
This may be evidence of some of the first skis used not for transportation since longer skis were used for travel. Later, during world war two, the troops had a whole division dedicated to ski warfare. It was called the 10th Mountain Division. The men lived in the mountains for weeks, working in altitudes of up to 13,000 feet, in five to six feet of snow. They also survived in temperatures twenty degrees below zero! They had many attacks by the Germans. One time, nearly 1,000 of the 13,000 troops in the division died. In 1924, skiing became an Olympic sport in Chamonix, France. Although skiing was introduced, alpine skiing was not put in the Olympics until 1936. In alpine skiing, they started with one event for men, and one for the women. Now, they have ten events in all for alpine skiing including the mens and womens slalom, downhill, and combined. They also have many other skiing events including aerials, moguls, ski cross, and halfpipe. Some famous U.S. alpine skiers are Bode Miller and Ted Ligety. Bode Miller has gotten 1 gold, 3 silver, and 2 bronze, while Ligety has gotten 2 golds. Although Bode has been in the Olympics longer, he has gotten less golds but more medals in all. Also,
Bode participates in less events than Ted. In the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Bode tied for 3rd, only losing to the 2nd place racer by 0.23 seconds. In ski racing, this is not uncommon at all, considering that it comes down to even hundredths of a second sometimes. One race they had a tie for 1st in 1 minute 58.62 seconds, 2nd place 1 minute 58.63, and 3rd place 1 minute 58.64! Downhill ski racers go up to ninety-five miles an hour so it is a matter of tenths of a mile per hour.
Skiing was first invented for people in Scandinavia to get up hills, not down them.