giant slalom

Giant slalom is an alpine skiing discipline. It involves skiing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance to each other than in  slalom but not as great as in  super G. The number of gates in this event ranges from 56 to 70 for men and from 46 to 58 for women. Giant slalom and  slalom make up the "technical events" in alpine ski racing. This category separates them from the "speed events" like  super G  and downhill.The number of direction changes in a GS course equals 11% - 15% of the vertical drop of the course in meters, 13% - 15 or children. The vertical drop for a GS course must be 250 - 400 meters for women, 250 - 450 meters for men. (Source: http://www.fis-ski.com/data/document/ICR04.pdf, p. 81). As an example, on a 300 m vertical course, there would be between 33 and 45 direction changes for an adult race.
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