INTRODUCTION: Among the most important biomechanical factors Influencing sport result in alpine skiing are: skier body build, their fitness level, technique and tactics of running, the equipment used, and external conditions. For many years up to now, tactics of running are limited primarily to choosing the proper line of running between the gates. The purpose of this paper is to describe investigations on tactics of running that take into account distribution of velocity of running along the whole course. METHOD: Research work started with the giant slalom in 1994 with the Greek skiers in Naousa by Erdmann and Giovanis (Giovanis, 1998). Then investigations of the best world skiers during FIS World Cup (Kranjska Gora, Saalbach) were accomplished by Erdmann et al. (Aschenbrenner, 2002). During 2006/2007 FIS World Cup investigations of three: SL, GS, SG, DH were accomplished. Those data are still under collaboration. The geometry of the setting of poles of the whole courses was obtained in different ways. Recently, global positioning Systems (GPS) were used with one movable GPS carried from pole to pole and one stationary (reference) GPS. The above measurements provided data on distances between poles, angles of deviation and angles of incline (Erdmann, 1995). The time of running of all skiers between poles of the whole course was captured by a Video camera recording and shown on a television screen utilized by organizers at the finish area. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The whole length of courses differed significantly. For GS in Naousa it was 936 m, in Kranjska 1149 m, in Saalbach 1456 m (mean data for two runs). Mean inter-gate distances were from 23.5 in Kranjska, to 25.9 in Naousa, to 27.5 m in Saalbach. Mean velocities of running of the whole course of the three best skiers were in Naousa: 16.8, in Kranjska 17.2, in Saalbach 18.1 m/s. H. Maier in some inter-gate distances ran even 22.0 m/s. There were fragments of the course where the 10 best skiers ran slower than the rest of group in order to achieve much better velocity within the proceeding fragment. CONCLUSION: World Cup organizers should provide geometry of the course for coaches and skiers in order to calculate velocities and to evaluate tactics of running.
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