Freestyle skiing is a
skiing
Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IO ...
discipline comprising aerials,
moguls,
cross
A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...
,
half-pipe
A half-pipe is a structure used in gravity extreme sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding, skiing, freestyle BMX, skating, and scooter riding.
Overview
The structure resembles a cross-section of a swimming pool, essentially two concave ramp ...
,
slopestyle
Slopestyle is a winter sport in which athletes ski or snowboard down a course including a variety of obstacles including rails, jumps and other terrain park features. Points are scored for amplitude, originality and quality of tricks. The disci ...
and
big air
Big air is a high-injury-risk sports discipline where the competitor rides a vehicle, such as a motocross motorcycle, a skateboard, a snowboard, or a pair of skis, down a hill or ramp and performs aerial tricks after launching off very large jumps ...
as part of the
Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...
. It can consist of a skier performing aerial flips and spins and can include skiers sliding rails and boxes on their skis. Known as "hot-dogging" in the early 1970s,
it is also commonly referred to as freeskiing, jibbing, as well as many other names, around the world.
History
Ski acrobatics have been practiced since the 1930s. Aerial skiing was popularized in the 1950s by Olympic gold medalist
Stein Eriksen
Stein Eriksen (11 December 1927 – 27 December 2015) was an alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist from Norway. Following his racing career, he was a ski school director and ambassador at various resorts in the United States.
Background ...
. Early US competitions were held in the mid-1960s.
In 1969, Waterville Valley Ski Area in New Hampshire, formed the first freestyle instruction program, making the resort the birthplace of freestyle skiing. The following year, Corcoran and Doug Pfeiffer, organized the first National Open Championships of Freestyle Skiing on the Sunnyside trails. In 1971, Waterville Valley Hosted the first Professional Freestyle Skiing Competition, which attracted freestyle skiing legends to Waterville Valley. Some of these competitors, such as Wayne Wong, Floyd Wilkie, and George Askevold, stayed at Waterville Valley as coaches of the first Freestyle Ski Team.
International Ski Federation
The ''Fédération internationale de ski et de snowboard'' (FIS; en, International Ski and Snowboard Federation) is the highest international governing body for skiing and snowboarding. Founded on 2 February 1924 in Chamonix, France during the ...
(FIS) recognized freestyle skiing as a sport in 1979 and brought in new regulations regarding certification of athletes and jump techniques in an effort to curb the dangerous elements of the competitions. The first
FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup
The FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup is an annual freestyle skiing competition arranged by the International Ski Federation since 1980. Currently six disciplines are included in world cup: moguls, aerials, ski cross, halfpipe, slopestyle and big ai ...
was staged in 1980 and the first
FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships
The FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships is the world championship organized by the FIS for freestyle skiing. It was first organized in 1986 and is now held every odd year. Currently, the events included in the world championships are Moguls, ...
took place in 1986 in
Tignes
Tignes () is a commune in the Tarentaise Valley, in the Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France, known for the highest skiable area and the longest ski season in Europe. It is located in the Savoie region with good tr ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. Freestyle skiing was a
demonstration event
A demonstration sport, or exhibition sport, is a sport which is played to promote it, rather than as part of standard medal competition. This occurs commonly during the Olympic Games, but may also occur at other sporting events.
Demonstration spor ...
at the
1988 Winter Olympics
The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games (french: XVes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Calgary 1988 ( bla, Mohkínsstsisi 1988; sto, Wîchîspa Oyade 1988 or ; cr, Otôskwanihk 1998/; srs, Guts ...
in
Calgary
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...
. Mogul skiing was added as an official medal event at the
1992 Winter Olympics
)
, nations = 64
, athletes = 1,801 (1313 men, 488 women)
, events = 57 in 6 sports (12 disciplines)
, opening = 8 February 1992
, closing = 23 February 1992
, opened_by = President François Mitterrand
, cauldron ...
in
Albertville
Albertville (; Arpitan: ''Arbèrtvile'') is a subprefecture of the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Southeastern France.
It is best known for hosting the 1992 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. In 2018, the commune had ...
, and the aerials event was added for the
1994 Winter Olympics
The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games ( no, De 17. olympiske vinterleker; nn, Dei 17. olympiske vinterleikane) and commonly known as Lillehammer '94, was an international winter multi-sport event held fro ...
in
Lillehammer
Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the municip ...
. In 2011, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved both halfpipe and slopestyle freeskiing events to be added to the
2014 Winter Olympics
, ''Zharkie. Zimnie. Tvoi'')
, nations = 88
, events = 98 in 7 sports (15 disciplines)
, athletes = 2,873
, opening = 7 February 2014
, closing = 23 February 2014
, opened_by = President Vladimir Putin
, cauldron =
, stadium = Fisht Olympic ...
in
Sochi
Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.
Forms of freestyle skiing
Aerial skiing
Aerialists ski off 2-4 meter jumps, that propel them up to 6 meters in the air (which can be up to 20 meters above the landing height, given the landing slope). Once in the air, aerialists perform multiple flips and twists before landing on a 34 to 39-degree inclined landing hill about 30 meters in length. The top male aerialists can currently perform triple back flips with up to four or five twists.
Aerial skiing is a judged sport, and competitors receive a score based on jump takeoff (20%), jump form (50%) and landing (30%). A
degree of difficulty
Degree of difficulty (DD, sometimes called tariff or grade) is a concept used in several sports and other competitions to indicate the technical difficulty of a skill, performance, or course, often as a factor in scoring. Sports which incorporate ...
(DOD) is then factored in for a total score. Skiers are judged on a cumulative score of LIMA two jumps. These scores do not generally carry over to the next round.
Aerialists train for their jumping maneuvers during the summer months by skiing on specially constructed
water ramps and landing in a large swimming pool. An example of this is the
Utah Olympic Park training facility. A water ramp consists of a wooden ramp covered with a special plastic mat that when lubricated with sprinklers allows an athlete to ski down the ramp towaРrds a jump. The skier then skis off the wooden jump and lands safely in a large swimming pool. A burst of air is sent up from the bottom of the pool just before landing to break up the surface tension of the water, thus softening the impact of the landing. Skiers sometimes reinforce the skis that they use for water-ramping with 6mm of fiberglass or cut holes in the front and back in order to soften the impact when landing properly on their skis.
Summer training also includes training on trampolines, diving boards, and other acrobatic or gymnastic training apparatus.
Mogul skiing
Moguls are a series of bumps on a trail formed when skiers push the snow into mounds or piles as they execute short-radius turns. Moguls can also be formed deliberately, by piling mounds of snow.
In competitions, athletes are judged on their technique as well as on their speed by mastering the bumps in a calm yet aggressive way. Usually there are two jumps. In the early days the location was chosen by the competitors. Since the mid 1980s those jumps have become part of the official slope. While at the beginning only upright jumps were allowed, from the mid 1990s onward flips were added as an option.
Moguls has become part of the Olympics since 1992. Canadian athlete
Alexandre Bilodeau
Alexandre Bilodeau (; born September 8, 1987) is a Canadian retired freestyle skiing, freestyle skier from Rosemère, Rosemere, Quebec, Bilodeau currently resides in Montreal, Montreal, Quebec. Bilodeau won a gold medal in the Freestyle skiing a ...
has won the Gold Medal twice: 2010 and 2014.
Ski ballet (Acroski)
Ski ballet, later renamed acroski (or "acro"), was a competitive discipline in the formative years of freestyle skiing. Competitors devised routines lasting 3 to 5 minutes and executed to music. The routines consisted of spins, jumps, and flips on a prepared flat course. For a short period of time (in the 1980s) there was also pair ballet competitions, a variation of ballet, where two people performed tricks that not only included spins, jumps and leg crossing but also lifts and sychronic movements and was similar to
ice dancing
Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a discipline of figure skating that historically draws from ballroom dancing. It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976. Ac ...
. The routines were scored by judges who assessed the choreography, technical difficulty, and mastery of skills demonstrated by the competitors. Early innovators in the sport were American
Jan Bucher
Jan Bucher (born 1957) is an American freestyle skier and world champion.
She won a gold medal in acroski ( ski ballet) at the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships 1986 in Tignes. At the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships 1989 in Oberjo ...
, Park Smalley, Swiss
Conny Kissling
Conny Kissling (born 18 July 1961) is a Swiss freestyle skier, world champion and Olympic participant.
She competed at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, in women's moguls. Her achievements at the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships ...
and German
Hermann Reitberger. The first skier who performed a one handed pole flip in a world cup competition was German
Richard Schabl
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...
in the early 1980s. Acro ski was part of the demonstration at the
1988 Winter Olympics
The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games (french: XVes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Calgary 1988 ( bla, Mohkínsstsisi 1988; sto, Wîchîspa Oyade 1988 or ; cr, Otôskwanihk 1998/; srs, Guts ...
in Calgary. The
International Ski Federation
The ''Fédération internationale de ski et de snowboard'' (FIS; en, International Ski and Snowboard Federation) is the highest international governing body for skiing and snowboarding. Founded on 2 February 1924 in Chamonix, France during the ...
ceased all formal competition of this event after 2000 because they focused on both aerials (1990) and moguls (1992) for making it an Olympic discipline.
Ski cross
Ski cross is based on the snowboarding boardercross. Despite it being a timed racing event, it is often considered part of freestyle skiing because it incorporates terrain features traditionally found in freestyle.
Halfpipe skiing
Halfpipe skiing is the sport of riding snow skis on a half-pipe. Competitors gradually ski to the end of the pipe by doing flips and tricks. It became an Olympic event for the first time at the
2014 Olympic Games in
Sochi
Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.
Slopestyle
In slopestyle, athletes ski or snowboard down a course including a variety of obstacles including rails, jumps, and other
terrain park
A terrain park or snow park is an outdoor recreation area containing terrain that allows skiers, snowboarders and snowbikers to perform tricks. Terrain parks have their roots in skateparks and many of the features are common to both.
From their ...
features. Points are scored for amplitude, originality and quality of tricks.
Twin-tip skis
A modified version of their alpine counterparts, twin-tip skis are designed to enable a skier to take off and land backward while jumping and to ski backwards (switch) down a slope. The name "twin-tip" comes from the dual shape of the ski. While m ...
are used and are particularly useful if the skier lands backwards. Slopestyle tricks fall mainly into four categories: spins,
grinds, grabs and
flips. Slopestyle became an
Olympic event, in both skiing and snowboarding forms, at the
2014 Winter Games in
Sochi
Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.
Equipment
Twin-tip ski
A modified version of their alpine counterparts, twin-tip skis are designed to enable a skier to take off and land backward while jumping and to ski backwards (switch) down a slope. The name "twin-tip" comes from the dual shape of the ski. While m ...
s are used in events such as slopestyle and halfpipe. Mogul skis are used in moguls and sometimes in aerials. Specially designed racing skis are used in ski cross.
Ski bindings
A ski binding is a device that connects a ski boot to the ski. Before the 1933 invention of ski lifts, skiers went uphill and down and cross-country on the same gear. As ski lifts became more prevalent, skis—and their bindings—became increasin ...
took a major design change to include plate bindings mounted to the bottom of the skiers boot to allow for multi-directional release. Ski poles are a staple in the all aspects of freestyle skiing, however, slopestyle athletes have more recently opted to ski without them in order to free their hands for grabs and other personal preferences in their riding.
See also
*
Freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics
Freestyle skiing has been contested at the Winter Olympic Games since the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France.
Summary
History
Freestyle skiing was a demonstration sport at the 1988 Winter Olympics, with moguls, aerials, and ballet e ...
*
FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships
The FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships is the world championship organized by the FIS for freestyle skiing. It was first organized in 1986 and is now held every odd year. Currently, the events included in the world championships are Moguls, ...
References
Sources
* Furrer, Art; Renggli, Sepp (1970) ''Skiakrobatik für jedermann'' Bern: Benteli
* Broze, Matt Charles (1972) ''Freestyle skiing'' Seattle: Wildcat Books
* Johnston, John; Daigle, Michel; Bowie, Darryl (1974) ''Freestyle Skiing: Technique Manual'' Vancouver: Winter Habit Productions
* Luini, Mario; Brunner, André (1975) ''Akroski : alles über Skiakrobatik u. Skikunst'' Bern: Benteli
* United States Ski Association (1977) ''Official freestyle competition rules''
* Mohan, John; Hiltner, Walt (1978) ''Freestyle Skiing'' New York: Winchester Press
* Wieman, Randy; Newman, Robbi (1979) ''Freestyle Skiing: A Complete Guide to the Fundamentals of Hot Dogging'' Angus & Robertson
* Smalley, Park (1986) ''Skiing Freestyle: Official Training Guide of the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team'' Taylor Publishing Company
* Riess, Steven A. (2015
''Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century: An Encyclopedia''Routledge
External links
Waterville Valley, Birthplace of Freestyle SkiingFIS homepageFreestyle skiing – olympic.orgwiki.fis-ski.com The resource of information and knowledge on Freestyle Skiing, Ski Jumping, FIS World Ski Championships
freestylebc.skiThe largest provincial sport organization for freestyle skiing in Canada.
freestylecanada.ski The official site of the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association. Your source for moguls, aerials, halfpipe and slopestyle skiing in Canada.
{{Extreme sports
Winter Olympic sports
Acrobatic sports