I had genuinely never seen slalom pre-2000s. This is eye opening. It's also remarkable to see the difference between Stenmark and the top-tier vs the other guys. Way more noticeable than modern day.
We skied Are a few years ago and it was one of our best family skis. There was sufficient skiing to keep all the family entertained and the town centre was one of the best with things to do for our non skiers. There is a leisure centre with indoor / outdoor swimming and trips to see an ice hotel, frozen waterfall, local art and lots more. We stayed self catering in the town centre within reasonably easy walking distance of the lifts. We flew to a local airport and caught a prearranged minibus to the town. Arriving by train is also easy with the railway station right in the middle of the town. One of the main highlights for me was the wonderful view from above the frozen lake which you will have glimpsed on the utube. I can recommend Are!
Back in the day...Europeans liked racing in America because the the race courses were groomed and smooth. The Are course was typical of the courses set in Europe. The speeds were a lot slower but the courses were more dangerous because of the rough conditions. There is a lot of skating and up unweighting in this video. Marco Odermat (2021) is one of the few WC racers that still uses a "classical" technique and has good results. The old chicken and the egg concept is whether skis changed and new technique came about...or did someone try a different technique and ski technology had to evolve? Also the gate combinations contributed to new technique. Skiing has come a long ways. I remember skiing on 203-207cm skis for slalom and 207-210cm skis for giant slalom.. My current slalom skis are now 165cm.
The equipment and the snow, poles, was totally different back then. An example, in slalom, Stenmark used skis of 2.15 meters in length! Compare that to slalom carving skis around max 1.70-1,75 meters!! Maybe todays alpine skiers would be, as you put it, laughable, in 40 years time also....
