Sport on the internet: From Val d'Isere to Kleenex Corner: how to find your way around the ski slopes without leaving home

There are only 49 days left until the Winter Olympics starts in Nagano, Japan on 7 February. The reason I know this is that there is a countdown on the official Winter Olympics site.

Leading up to the Olympics there are the men's and women's World Cup competitions in Alpine skiing going on across the world. Currently the women are in Val d'Isere in France and the men in Val Gardena in Italy. A full list of their schedules can be found on the Alpine skiing World Cup 98 site, which also has all the current World Cup placings plus the current rankings for each Alpine discipline. It also has an impressive database of all the skiers' results for this season.

It was sufficiently up-to-date to have yesterday's results from Val d'Isere almost as they happened in their Last Gate section. It also included the news that the men's downhill at Val Gardena was abandoned because of bad weather. The site's archive section gives all the results for the last three World Cups and the 1996 World Championship.

The Nordic skiers also have their own World Cup site, where you get the latest cross-country and ski jumping results, but it is far less impressive than its Alpine counterpart. There is now even a World Cup for freestyle skiing for which you find details among Reuters Ski News.

Another skiing offshoot is the Le Mans of skiing, the 24 Hours Aspen Ski Race, which was held last weekend. The race was won by the Swiss team, with Canada finishing second and the United States third. The US apparently held second place "until the early morning hours, when Tyler Williams took a nasty spill at Kleenex Corner which cost his team 40 seconds". All the information you need on that race is available on the SkiNet site. If you want to see all the runs used for the Alpine skiing, then try SkiMaps, which has pictures of all the resorts round the world.

Addresses

1998 Winter Olympics official site

http://www.olympic.org/games/nagano/

Alpine skiing World Cup 98 site

http://www.alpcom.it/ski/

Nordic skiing World Cup 98 site

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/2373/SKI.HTM

Freestyle World Cup

http://www.sportsline.com/u/usskiteam/skitnews/ReutersSkiNews.htm

SkiNet

http://www.skinet.com/competition/

Ski Maps site

http://www.skimaps.com/