INTRODUCTION: Ski Mountaineering is relatively new competition event that combines elements from the alpine ski (downhill skiing), cross-country ski (uphill skiing) and mountaineering techniques. Limited research has been done in Ski Mountaineering. Voutselas et al. (2005) showed that velocity at VO2max strongly correlates with athletes' uphill skiing velocity. The main aim of the present study was to examine whether there is a correlation between athletes1 uphill skiing velocity and uphill course grade in Ski Mountaineering. In addition, to identify the uphill course morphological characteristics of Ski Mountaineering Races. METHODS: Data selected from four well trained male Ski Mountaineering athletes (age 29±6.1yrs, body height 1.75±0.1m, body mass 68.5±9.4kg, VO2max59.5±1.3ml/min/kg) during the three races of the National Greek Cup 2006-07. Ascent (m), distance (m), grade (%), time (s) and velocity (m/s) was collected by a Global Point System (Garmin Rino 530) which was carried from the athletes during the three races. Spearman correlation was used to examine the correlation between the uphill course grade and uphill skiing velocity of each athlete during the three races. RESULTS: Spearman Correlation showed that in athletes who had better uphill race time, there was a stronger negative correlation between uphill course grade and uphill skiing velocity (figure 1). The Morphological characteristics of the Greek National Cup Races are represented in table 1. DISCUSSION: Results showed: that athletes with faster uphill race • time seemed to be more; negatively affected from the uphill course grade than the slower ones'. However that factor did not affect the total time. In addition, our findings showed that the morphology of each race is different and has its own characteristics depending on the mountain's morphology. CONCLUSION: The greater negative affect of the increasing uphill grade observed in the faster athletes did not significantly affect the total uphill skiing time.
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