The Dolomites is the largest skiing area in the world, and for this reason it is unique. One of the most beautiful sites is Val Gardena which has gone down in the history of the World Cup circuit. The Italian venue hosted the first World Cup competition in 1969, and staged the pre-World Championships the year before, on the newly built 'Saslong' and 'Cir' slopes.

The physically-demanding Saslong slope, derives its name from the Sassolungo mountain, a greyish and pink color, and is one the most cragged peaks in the Dolomites.

The course is a bumpy slope at 3,446 mt and has a vertical drop of 839 meters. The gradients are from 24.5% to 56.9% making it extremely popular among ski fans due to the spectacular 'Camel Hunches' and the icy turns of the 'Ciaslat'.

Due to the new rules set out by FIS, the Saslong slopes were designed to be easier, which in turn made them a lot safer, with less extreme turns, jumps, holes and moguls. This also meant that other legendary speed tracks such as the 'Lauberhorn' in Wengen and 'Streif' in Kitzbuhel, were also modified to guarantee more safety due to the fact that the average speed had increased a lot, surpassing the 100 km per hour.

Swiss Jean Daniel Daetwyler won the Gardena-opening event on February 14, 1969, the prologue to the first major event. The World Ski Championships were staged here a year later. The 1970 Worlds achieved a strong impact on the development of Val Gardena. Swiss rising star Bernhard Russi took the prestigious gold in the downhill event at the age of 22, while Jean Noel Augert of France and Austrian legend Karl Schranz were crowned World Champions in the SL and GS respectively.

A World Cup event has been regularly organized here since 1972 with some memorable moments in history. 1975 was remembered for the sizzling duel between Italian star Gustav Thoeni and Swedish youngster Ingemar Stenmark. Both racers were running for the overall title in the final race of the season, a parallel slalom which was staged at Ortisei/St.Ulrich in front of 40,000 spectators. They did the run almost perfectly together until the third to last last gate when Thöni succeeded in beating Stenmark, to the delight of the crowd.

The women took centre stage in Gardena from 1970 until 1975. Swiss Anneroesli Zyrd took the gold medal by winning the female World Championship downhill. Ingrid Lafforgue of France and Canada's Betsy Clifford won the gold in the technical events, SL and GS respectively. Austria's Monika Kaserer won the season-ending female race on March 24, 1975.

Austrian hero Franz Klammer won four times (1975, 1976 with a stunning back-to-back on consecutive days and 1982), followed by Swiss Peter Müller, who also had three firsts in 1979, 1980 and 1988. Homeboy Kristian Ghedina was a three-time winner in 1996, 1998 and 1999. There are other several multiple winners such as Antoine Deneriaz, Patrick Ortlieb, Rob Boyd and Helmuth Hoeflehner. In 1993 the underdog from Liechtenstein, Markus Foser claimed an incredible victory, starting with the bib number 66.

2004 was marked by the first German victory thanks to Max Rauffer. In 2005, Marco Büchel from Liechtenstein won his first downhill race on a shortened course and in 2006 Steven Nyman from the USA celebrated the first American victory.

Only two athletes, Pirmin Zurbriggen and Lasse Kjus, have won both the downhill and the super-G on the Saslong. The Swiss won the super-G in 1983 and the downhill in 1989 while the Norwegian won the downhill in 1998 and the super-G in 2003.

On December 15, 1980 the Austrian downhiller Uli Spiess made a sensational jump on the 'Camel Hunches'. His speed was at least 100 km per hour and his leap was measured at almost 70 meters flying 10 meters high. Other racers attempted to emulate him, but they suffered heavy falls.

As a consequence, the organizing committee supported by FIS decided to shorten the jump to 50-60 meters. Marc Girardelli who never tried the jump, created his own line, called the 'Girardelli line'.

Val Gardena is part of the 'Club 5', a union of the leading alpine ski race organizers from all over the world created in 1988 by the Alpine Ski World Cup founder Serge Lang. This is an inner circle that includes the top level downhills (Val d'Isere, Wengen, Kitzbuhel and Garmisch-Partenkirchen) among other races.