Alpine Canada (French: Canada Alpin) is the governing body for alpine ski racing in Canada. Alpine Canada represents coaches, officials, supporters and athletes, including the racers of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team, Canada's Ski Cross Team and the Canadian Para-Alpine Ski Team. Alpine Canada is also involved in promoting participation within Canada’s four million recreational skiers.

Its mission is to produce the best skiers in the world for Canada by providing support, funding and instruction at every level of competition, ranging from the very introduction, to the World Cup level. Thus, its involvement is broad by nature, encompassing national, provincial and regional teams, while promoting at the same time ski racing to the general population, the majority of its focus is result based, which means that a lot of effort is put on developing material and structures with the goal of developing the potential of elite level skiers for Canada.^{[citation needed]}

The National team comprises athletes who are, or who will, participate in events on the World Cup circuit. Both men and women have a national team and a different coaching staff. Athletes who are not yet ready or old enough to take part at the highest level of competition are thus placed on the development team, while members who have earned a permanent spot are on the senior team.

Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km² (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.

The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.

Jan Hudec, Jr. (born August 19, 1981) is a World Cup alpine ski racer from Canada, specializing in the speed events of downhill and Super G. Beset by injuries for several seasons, he returned to World Cup form in 2012 at age 30 and gained his second victory.

Born in Šumperk, Czechoslovakia, he defected in a homemade raft with his parents to West Germany while an infant. The family moved to Canada in 1986 and settled in Red Deer, Alberta, where Jan Sr. was a ski coach. In 1993 the Hudecs, now a family of four with younger brother Phil, moved to Banff where both parents worked at the Mountain Ski Academy.

Hudec emerged as a World Cup downhiller in February 2007; he won the silver medal in downhill at the 2007 World Championships in Åre, Sweden, followed up with a fifth place at Garmisch, Germany. That November he won his first World Cup event, a downhill in Lake Louise, but suffered a season-ending knee injury while training in Switzerland two months later. In January 2009, Hudec had a comeback at the Lauberhorn downhill in Wengen, Switzerland, where he finished eighth, but three weeks later an injury at the 2009 World Championships downhill in Val-d'Isère, France, ended his 2009 season.

Lindsey Caroline Vonn (née Kildow; born October 18, 1984) is an American alpine ski racer with the U.S. Ski Team. She has won four overall World Cup championships – one of only two female skiers to do so, along with Annemarie Moser-Pröll – with three consecutive titles in 2008, 2009 and 2010, plus another in 2012. Vonn won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the first ever in the event for an American woman. She has also won five consecutive World Cup season titles in the downhill discipline, four consecutive titles in Super G, and three consecutive titles in the combined as of 2012.

Vonn is one of five women to have won World Cup races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing – downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom, and super combined – and has won 53 World Cup races in her career as of March 14, 2012. Only two women have more World Cup victories in their careers, Austrian Annemarie Moser-Pröll with 62 and Swiss Vreni Schneider with 55, both retired from active racing. With her Olympic gold and bronze medals, two World Championship gold medals in 2009 (plus three silver medals in 2007 / 2011), and four overall World Cup titles, Vonn has become the most successful American skier in the history of alpine skiing.

Ashleigh McIvor (born September 15, 1983 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian freestyle skier currently residing in Pemberton, British Columbia. McIvor is a member of the Canadian national ski cross team and became the first gold medal winner of women's ski cross at the 2010 Winter Olympics. She is also a former world champion in ski cross and has a second place finish at the Winter X Games to her credit as well.

McIvor entered ski-cross at a young age, being one of the youngest on the World Cup circuit, and finishing second in her first overall race, she entered the X-Games soon after. She was soon a featured athlete during the X-Games, and became the face of women's ski cross. EXPN followed McIvor around and did a one-hour episode on her and what happens to X-Games athletes behind the scenes. McIvor has participated with fashion photographers, modeled on runways, and secured major sportswear sponsorships because of her popularity.

McIvor started competing in 2003. She has been to four Winter X-Games, with her best finishes being 7th in X-Games 10 and X-Games VII. McIvor won her first World Championship in 2009 at Inawashiro, Japan. She also has four podium finishes on the FIS World Cup circuit to her credit, including a silver medal at Cypress Mountain in 2009, the future site of the Vancouver Olympic Games. McIvor finished third overall on the 2008-09 FIS World Cup season.