Competition slalom skiing is one of the most exciting winter sports. For the top end slalom competition it’s about experience, coordination and speed.

What separates the modern sport from the past is the use of sophisticated timing equipment to split the competitor’s fraction of a second time differences into gold, silver and bronze. Incredibly this may not happen at this year’s men’s World Cup slalom held in Schladming, Austria with the Austrian Ski team claiming that one of the Italian competitors, Giorgio Rocca, had crossed the line at the end of the first run with the clock already stopped.

An investigation launched by the International Ski Federation (FIS) into the timing system may result in the World Cup men’s slalom results being deemed null and void. Austrian Manfred Pranger who officially finished first will now wait for results of the investigation into the timing equipment before claiming victory.

FIS president Gianfranco Kasper said “I can’t rule out the race being scrapped. A group of five experts are examining the timing system at the Schladming slalom and if there are irregularities the race could be cancelled.”

Manfred Pranger of Austria (C) won the event, Benjamin Raich of Austria (L) took second while Andre Myhrer of Sweden (R) captured third. (Agence Zoom/Getty Images)

“There is damage, there is no question about that.” said Kasper. “It is a question of the credibility of the sport. The moment the media and spectators don’t trust the timing then we have a problem,” he added. “That is why we immediately asked for an analysis of all competitions, which will be an internal FIS analysis”.