How it unfolded
Alpine skiing entered the Olympic program for the first time at these Games in a single combined event summing downhill and slalom times. In the men's competition, host nation Germany's Franz Pfnur beat Norway's Gustav Lantschner, while in the women's event Germany's Christl Cranz won gold, adding an Olympic title to a world championship winning streak already underway. The Games were also clouded by controversy over amateur rules: several racers were stripped of eligibility for having been paid as ski instructors, the opening chapter of an amateurism debate that would run for decades. Even so, the event introduced downhill and slalom, until then known mainly within the Alps, to a global stage for the first time, and the number of participating nations expanded sharply across Europe.
Why it still matters
Without this debut, alpine skiing might have remained a subordinate discipline of Nordic skiing. Pfnur and Cranz's wins remain the official first page of Olympic alpine skiing history that continues today, and the amateur-eligibility controversy stands as an early example of why it took the sport decades to accept professional racers and prize money.